fell down from the atmosphere (so i could whisper in your ear so long)
by tinyvariations
Summary: Amid increasing hostilities, Supergirl does what she always does: saves the day. But this time the price is too high. Her body slack, lifeless, she plummets to the ground. Lena Luthor witnesses the fall from her office high above downtown. Only it's much, much worse for her. Why? Because she's dating Kara Danvers, and she's only just realized what that really entails. Supercorp.
1. Chapter 1

_Current Day_

National City is quiet.

Or what passes for quiet in such a bustling metropolis. The engine growls and angry horns of rush hour fade with the sun, and twilight ushers in an uneasy stillness, a precarious segue between the hustle and bustle of the day and the onset of the city's more nocturnal affairs. As dusk descends, the downtown corridors and alleys fill with elongated shadows, sink into fledgling darkness while the skyscrapers, the city's sentinels of glass and steel, stand silent among the burgeoning stars.

Light spills from the executive office on top of the L Corp building in the heart of downtown, not an uncommon sight in the evening hours by any stretch.

Because Lena Luthor is working late. Again.

Or trying to. Her focus isn't exactly what she'd hoped it would be. On the screen in front of her is the latest status report from the research and development lab. Just like it's been for the past hour. Progress has been...slow, the words long ago losing their form, blurring into one another in a whirl of black and white and gray. An exercise in futility.

A siren sounds in the distance, but that's commonplace. It will soon be swallowed whole by the descending darkness, disappear into the city's complex tapestry of brick and stone and steel and concrete. But for now, the noise rises, floats to her through the door of her balcony, the one she's taken to leaving open in the past weeks.

For Supergirl.

Her visits have been more frequent as of late, dropping out of the evening sky onto her balcony like a falling star, always some business to discuss. Although lately Lena finds the meetings more personally enjoyable than she would have previously thought possible, a friendship slowly being carved out between the two, a Luthor and a Super. _Who would have thought?_

But National City is...tense, lately, and the Girl of Steel is being kept busy, to put it lightly. With the mayoral elections ramping up, the inflammatory rhetoric of Councilman Drummond is emboldening the city's anti-alien factions, and they're flexing their muscles with increasing regularity, a growing list of violence and destruction to their names. She can't remember the last time a day went by without news of an incident of some sort.

The icing on the cake, at least as far as Lena's concerned, is today's breaking news item - Lillian Luthor's trial is set to start next week after another plea deal broke down this afternoon. Of course, her own role in the events leading to Cadmus' downfall hasn't been widely publicized. But it's expected to be. Icy fingers crawl up her spine when she considers the very real possibility that she'll once again find herself in the crosshairs.

It's like the wind is blowing from all directions, each one mixing and sliding over the other, spinning into the perfect storm.

So she does what she's always done when the world around her spins out of orbit. She works.

Work is a constant. Throughout her life, she's found it to be cathartic, a way to exert a modicum of control over her life, however illusory. Growing up, when things at home would-, when her mother would-

Her jaw clenches unconsciously. Even now she finds she can't linger on the memories, the pain aching dully in her veins, the pins and needles of an old injury flaring up with a change in the weather. Suffice to say, she was particularly studious as a child. When she finished school, she graduated at the top of her class, unsurprisingly. Just as unsurprising, she graduated with few friends. The habit is a hard one to break, it seems. Another bad news day, another late night at L Corp, working feverishly, grasping for control when her world continues to spin.

With each new headline, each new article on Cadmus or the trial, yet another Luthor tied up in murder and crime, it chips away at her. At what she's trying to do, who she's trying to become. It feels like she's splintering, burning up like a meteor on her way to earth.

Damage control is hard work. Made doubly hard when her name is plastered all over the news for all the wrong reasons.

With a last look at the jumble of words on her screen, betrayal writ large across her features, she leans back in her chair and closes her eyes, a heavy sigh escaping her lips like an admission of defeat.

After a moment she stands and rounds the desk, grabbing her phone from its place near the edge. As she walks toward the balcony, she pulls up her texts, clicks open the message thread with Kara with an easy familiarity.

When the new contact photo for Kara appears on her screen, though, she pauses, a soft smile pulling uncontrollably at the corners of her mouth. The shot is a candid one, Kara eyeing a fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza at Vino's the other night, her face a captivating study in unabashed joy. Something loosens in her chest at the sight.

The text she sends is to the point: "I'm wrapping up work. Care for some take-out?"

She's not the only one who has been working extra hard as of late. With the contentious election, her mother's trial, and the increasing number of anti-alien attacks, the budding journalist has been working overtime on articles for CatCo, her name appearing on bylines more and more frequently as the months have progressed. The whole city seems to be burning the candle at both ends these days, as if all of them are stuck in the same vicious holding pattern, their eyes on the sky waiting for the storm to break.

Another siren sounds. And another. A veritable symphony of emergency vehicles, their shrillness ricocheting off the steel and glass of downtown like a giant echo chamber.

With one last look at Kara's photo, Lena clicks off the screen, her brow creased in concern and her arm falling slack by her side as she steps across the threshold and approaches the railing, intent on surveying the city in the dying light.

But she never reaches it.

On the western horizon where the pinks of sunset give way to the lavenders and purples of twilight, an object falls from the heavens, ringed by a crown of fire and trailing a veil of smoke in its wake.

She squints, trying to get a better view of the comet or whatever it is, but it's too fast, too far to see much. As it falls, though, the speed works against the flame, beats it back, strips it of its power, and she has enough time to see a blur of blue and red before she loses sight of it behind the silent towers of downtown.

Lena's heart stops.

She doesn't see the impact; she's spared that much. But the collision is audible, the dull thud reaches her ears, echoes off the buildings downtown. It's the most sickening sound she's ever heard, and bile rises in her throat.

The phone slips from her hand, skitters unnoticed along the floor.

She's not sure how long she stands there on the balcony high above National City, unblinking, unbreathing, utterly unable to move. The sirens continue their song, building to a deafening crescendo. But she doesn't hear it.

Time stands still.

Eventually, she finds herself back at her desk, although she can't remember walking, can't remember moving. Whole minutes of her life are gone.

She can't remember anything other than the sound of impact.

With practiced hands, she brings up the local news on her computer, frantically searching for breaking news.

Although the wait feels interminable, a lifetime spent with bated breath, she doesn't have to wait long.

The video starts with a wide shot, someone videoing their kids playing in the park, their squeals and laughter pure, innocent. But they quickly fall quiet as the camera pans upward, zooms in, trying desperately to keep the emerging object in frame as it plummets through the crepuscular sky. It's when the flames abate that the news channel pauses the video, zooms in impossibly further.

The results of grainy and pixelated, but even still, there's little room for debate about what she sees.

Supergirl.

Lena's hand clamps tightly over her mouth as if she could somehow stop the horror with the gesture. Her jaw trembles, and her eyes widen impossibly.

 _No_.

They continue the video, this time in slow motion, tracking Supergirl's fall to earth in dogged detail. Her body is slack, a streak of blond and blue and red falling through the sky over National City, the bruised evening sky a hauntingly beautiful backdrop.

And then the impact...she can't...

It shakes Lena at her foundation. With each replay, the sickening crash sends shockwaves through the ground directly to her feet, and she falls to her knees, the hand over her mouth muffling her screams.

The news crew cuts back to a studio scene, the anchors talking in clipped tones, speculating on the events and promising to return when any new information is available.

Lena, on her knees on the floor of her executive office, a tear tracking down her cheek, hears none of it.

 _No no no..._

Later, much later when she thinks about this moment, the bile rising in her throat, it occurs to her how much the intensity of her reaction shouldn't have surprised her. After all, what she's seen, what she's experienced over the last few months have been support enough for her suspicions, for a crazy theory that she didn't want to believe.

But her reaction? Well, it tells her that she believed it, knew it to be true whether she wanted to or not.

The tear drops to the floor unnoticed. Another follows in short measure.

Because she knows about Supergirl. She _knows_.

And yet she said nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

_8 Weeks Ago_

 _Ding_.

The sleek elevator doors slide open, and with each inch, Lena Luthor finds herself slowly immersed in brightness.

She loves the entrance to the executive floor, its walls consisting of scores of bright bulbs secreted away behind translucent fixtures, floor to ceiling, giving the entire entryway a warm, incandescent glow.

 _It's like walking into a dream_. She lingers a moment longer, eyes falling closed, her lungs expanding gratefully before moving forward.

 _Click click click_ , she strides off the elevator, and as she passes the entry table, where fresh calla lilies are arranged and displayed in simple yet elegant vases, her progress stirs their petals, and passing the company logo, _her_ logo, she steps into her world in a delicate floral whirl.

She's late.

Ordinarily, she's damn near the first to arrive at the office in the morning. Perhaps it's silly, a sentimentality she's probably too old and too sophisticated to hold dear, but there's something about it that thrills her, walking into her office before the sun rises, the halls quiet and shadowed, the workstations empty, her only companions the phantom hums of random computers or the quiet whisper of the heater pumping air through the vents.

Watching the office fill up, her employees trickling into work, is like watching L-Corp coming to life before her eyes, transforming from a graveyard into a hive practically buzzing with activity. In turn, it breathes life into her own lungs, gives motion to her own limbs. It makes her feel alive.

But today is no ordinary day.

Although, she thinks, perhaps ordinary isn't a word that generally applies where Luthors are concerned.

Having spent the last hour in a grueling business breakfast meeting, doing battle armed with nothing more than false cheer and french pastries against a man who, at best, can be described as a slimy toad (one who had almost cancelled on her, no less), she wants nothing more than to retreat to her sanctuary. To doff her armor and rest her weary limbs behind her desk for a quiet moment.

But there's no buzz in the office, no whirl of movement or din of activity despite the dozens of people occupying desks all around her. When her footsteps sound, what little noise there was ceases altogether.

It feels like a funeral.

A hushed whisper. Another. Heads turning to steal sly looks at the Luthor in their midst.

Lena's steps falter.

Her nostrils flare slightly, but she doesn't turn her head. Staring straight ahead, she lifts her chin, straightens her spine, and tightens down her armor. The murmurs slide harmlessly off the polished steel.

 _Click click click._

"Ms. Luthor," her assistant, Jess, says by way of greeting, grabbing a pad of paper and pushing back from her desk, ready to follow Lena into her office.

Once inside, the doors shut resolutely behind them, Lena takes a deep breath, taking care to keep her back to her assistant. The tremble in her jaw is subtle, and she gets it under control before anyone can notice.

She hates that she has to.

"This morning you've had calls from Channels 4, 7, 11, 13-" Jess recites, her pencil ticking off the names on her notepad with an incessant scratch as she reads on. The list is unending.

Each name is an arrow, a dagger angled toward her body, and as the list grows her shoulders grow heavier and heavier under the blows. While she sheds her layers, her red wool coat finding its home on the rack near her couch, her favorite Hermes scarf next to it, her armor remains in place, the chain mail scratching at her porcelain skin.

It's a who's who of regional newspapers and media groups, although she notes with slight relief when Jess finishes the lack of national news outlets amongst the names.

"Your schedule today includes a 10:00 with Rosenberg from Research and Development, an 11:00 video conference with the Gotham subsidiary, a 1:30 meeting with the budget chair, and a 2:30 with an envoy from Palmer Industries."

After a moment of consideration, her eyes narrowing in thought, Lena turns to Jess with a request. "Please go ahead and schedule a-," she looks down, checks the sleek silver watch sitting coolly on her wrist, "- 9:30 face-to-face with PR here and shift the R&D meeting to this afternoon, say 4:00."

"Yes, ma'am, I'll take care of it," Jess says, making a note on the pad in her hand while Lena crosses the room to her desk.

"Oh, and please get the head of building maintenance on the phone for me as soon as possible. I know they've cleaned up what they could, but I need to make sure repairs are scheduled for the lobby," her voice trails off a moment, and when she continues, her tone is quieter, "just as soon as they let me take the crime scene tape down."

Jess offers a small smile and nods quickly, "Of course."

As she takes a seat, the leather cool against the thin material of her dress, she looks up and catches her assistant's eye. "Thank you, Jess. I mean it." The rest tumbles out on a sigh. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Jess smiles shyly and backs out of the office. The door closes with a soft thud, and she's alone.

When her computer screen comes to life, Lena pulls up her personalized dashboard, where she can access the latest figures, news, data points, whatever she needs at the touch of a finger.

Apparently, almost as soon as the opening bell sounded on the stock exchange this morning, L-Corp stocks began trending downward, and analysts believe they'll close today with a loss. With a grimace, she swipes to the next page, which tracks company mentions in the news and online.

It's even uglier.

 _"Anti-Alien Terror Plot Foiled"_

 _"Mass Murder Thwarted in National City"_

 _"Terror in the Skies"_

 _"Another Luthor Scheme?"_

Unsurprisingly, news of Cadmus' unsuccessful attempt to eradicate alien life is the top story on every local outlet. Details are few, for now, but every article she clicks cites some variation on the theme of "unnamed source with the investigation names none other than Lillian Luthor, mother of infamous Lex Luthor, as an involved party."

Every article - every last damned one - follows with the quick and dirty Wikipedia summary of the Luthor family, from Lex's sordid history down to herself, including mentions of L-Corp and the attempts on her life in recent months.

It doesn't matter that the few words spent on her and her company are neutral, free of any malice or negativity altogether. But she's still a Luthor. And this is her corporation.

It's a simple matter of guilt by association.

And once more she finds herself wounded at the hands of her mother. At least this time she's not left bleeding.

Sifting through the articles, it appears that only one mentions an uncorroborated report of a break-in at the L-Corp headquarters last night. Curious.

She knows what comes next, what the weeks and months ahead will bring - slander, libel, wild allegations and deleterious speculation. _Time to get out in front of it_.

Sitting up tall behind her desk, her armor clanks, the plates shifting and sliding and settling to adjust for her posture. Pulling up her email, she prepares for a counter-assault, ready to wield her words like swords.

No one sees the angry red welts forming on her skin where the armor chafes and digs and cuts unchecked.

* * *

A sudden noise breaks Lena out of her concentration. She shakes her head, tries to find her place again in the string of numbers dancing along her screen-

It happens again. Sudden and shrill and then absolute silence.

 _Is that...is that laughter?_

Her brow furrows. A quick check of the clock shows it's after 12:30 - she's worked clear through the morning without pause, storming through meeting and call alike. She's been caught up in a whirlwind of action, issuing press statements, putting out fires, setting the lumbering machine in motion, never pausing, never stopping in its course.

Pushing back from her desk, she stands, and the stiffness in her legs is almost enough to knock her right back down. It seems for all the activity she hasn't actually _moved_ in hours.

Arms up, she stretches her back, delighting in the pull at her shoulders, and slowly she moves, rounding the desk and crossing the room in unhurried, stilted steps. With each footfall, her ease begins to return, each step more firm than the last.

There's another laugh, quieter this time, coming from right outside the door. A jarring change from the funereal atmosphere in the office earlier. A smile pulls at her cheeks. Curious, she wraps her fingers around the cool metal handle of her office door and pulls, ever so slowly, the door opening silently inch by inch, unsure of what she'll find on the other side.

In exactly zero of the scenarios running through her head did she imagine opening her door to find Kara Danvers in her blue chinos and pale blue button down leaning over her assistant's desk with her phone out, the two clearly enraptured with whatever is happening on the small screen.

A smile, genuine and spontaneous, breaks out at the sight. _Of course it's Kara._ In an attempt at stealth, Lena creeps forward, mindful of her heels on the hard floors. At two steps in, she's able to get a glimpse of the screen - what appears to be a golden retriever bouncing around someone in costume?

She must have made a noise, must have given herself away somehow in spite of her care because Kara whirls around with inhuman speed, and Jess quickly follows suit. While Jess, her hand over her mouth, desperately trying to stifle yet another bark of laughter, looks a bit like a deer caught in the headlights, Kara is all smiles, and she finds her own growing to match.

She wants to stare, wants to curl up and bask in it. For all the people she's met with today, all the meetings and video conferences, planned or otherwise, this may well be the first genuine smile she has come across, and she would wrap herself in it if she could find a way.

 _Someone should bottle that, sell it as a cure-all. They'd make a fortune..._

But it's like leaving a matinee movie, walking out of the darkened theater into the sunlight, the sudden change jarring and disorienting, the light too intense. She blinks, and her eyes drift back to Jess, who, still trying to quiet her laughs, croaks out, "Ms. Luthor, Kara Danvers here to see you."

Lena huffs out a laugh quite unexpectedly. "Thanks, Jess, I see that." Turning to Kara, amusement splashed across her face in neon, she asks, "Care to come in, Ms. Danvers?"

"Looks like you've made a new friend," she starts when the door closes softly behind them, a coy smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. She leads them to the nearby couch so they can sit and chat comfortably. Away from her desk, away from the battlefield where she's passed her entire morning. It wouldn't be right, wouldn't be fair to drag Kara into that arena.

The fabric is soft beneath her hands, and she turns sideways, angles her body toward Kara, who sits down a few feet away near the other end, placing her shoulder bag on the floor by her feet.

Silence settles around them, warm and comfortable, and it soothes the dull ache in her limbs.

Across the way, Kara studies her, head angled, brow furrowed a little in the middle. The silence remains unabated, and the longer it lasts the more Lena feels like she's being undone, like the layers and walls around her are being systematically destabilized, deconstructed brick by brick.

It's simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating.

"How are you?" Kara finally asks, concern plain in her voice.

"Peachy." The quip is automatic, the accompanying laugh charming enough. But it's forced, a knee-jerk response typical of one she'd give just about anyone who asked.

Except this isn't just anyone. This is Kara. Her friend. Her _only_ friend here.

For what it's worth, Kara is unphased, the brush off ignored out of hand. She sits quietly still, her face softening minutely, but her gaze just as direct, just as knowing.

With a sigh, Lena amends her answer, "It's been a long morning. An even longer night." Her laugh is humorless, the weariness of centuries compressed into a single sound. "I don't think I've slept…"

"I'm so sorry, Lena, all of this must be so hard on you."

Whether real or imagined, Lena hears pity in the words, barbs that needle and prick around the edges. Not that she knows why it bothers her. But the mask she's so accustomed to wearing begins to slip into its familiar position, and she tries desperately to fight the temptation. To remain here. To remain real.

And Kara, staring softly at her, lips pulled downward fractionally into a pout, makes her want to fight harder, and she finds herself bending, leaning forward ever so slightly.

"Oh! Before I forget," Kara starts, reaching into the bag at her feet and pulling out a plastic cup emblazoned with the name of a local cafe, a place a couple blocks away. "I'm kind of here on my lunch break," she says by way of explanation, "so I stopped to pick up a bite on the way. And I...I don't know, I just thought you might be too busy today or too distracted?" Her voice raises, as if in question. Her words are rushed, and they tumble out, seemingly unable to stop while her hands begin to gesture increasingly erratically in emphasis. "Anyway, I brought you a fruit cup…" she finishes with a shrug of her shoulders, her gift held up in her outstretched hand.

Lena stares, her mouth slightly open. It feels like it must be an eternity, sitting there, looking into the earnest eyes of Kara Danvers, her face hopeful, her smile warm.

In reality, the silence lasts only a second or two.

"I mean in case you wanted it." Kara amends, uneasy with the quiet. Her smile falters fractionally, the wattage dims.

"Thank you," Lena manages, smoothing over her delayed response and reaching out for the proffered cup, her fingertips brushing Kara's in the exchange. A shock of warmth, smooth, and then it's gone, her grip on the cup secure. But not without effect. Her lips part, and her breath catches momentarily before she recovers.

"That's so thoughtful of you. I'm famished," she says smoothly, working at the lid on the fruit cup. "I hadn't even realized the time. It's been...hectic, today." Once open, she reaches in, pops a grape into her mouth. When she looks back up, Kara is watching her, her mouth open as if in surprise, her expression inscrutable. Lena offers her a tired smile before popping another grape.

With a small shake of her head, Kara seems to refocus, and with a weak smile, she bends down, pulls a pen and notepad out of her bag. "Do you mind?"

Lena's smile freezes in place, and she blinks once, twice - too many times. Her heart beats harder at the effort to keep her face unchanged, to hide the strain, the disappointment.

Apparently, she doesn't act quickly enough. Across from her, Kara is a study in contrition, the apology ready in her eyes before she even utters a word. "I'm sorry…" she trails off, her voice quiet. "If it's too soon, if you need time…"

The words hang in the air, suspended like a lifeline, but Lena shakes her head, sits up straighter on the couch, feeling the armor settling heavily against her limbs once more.

"It's alright, you have a job to do. Of course, you have questions." With a practiced ease, she continues, her tone switching effortlessly to the one she uses for business meetings, all confidence and silk, but minus the underlying warmth. "I assume you're looking for something other than the statement my staff released to the press this morning?"

"It was very...polished."

"It has to be." Her answer is immediate, albeit perhaps a little sharper than she had intended, but her morning has been spent fighting just this battle. "Every word, every letter, every space is intentional. The media will take it and pick it apart, turn it upside down looking for a weakness, looking for an 'in' so they can spin it however they wish to suit their needs." When she looks at Kara, her gaze is unwavering. "It has to be polished, or it won't survive. Or L-Corp won't survive. We're already being dragged into this...this thing, and I have to find a way to separate the two."

"Is that possible?"

"What are you implying, Kara, that I was involved?" Her voice is steel, a sharpened sword at the ready.

"No!" Kara shouts, the sound startling in the otherwise quiet office. "No! No, not...that's not what I meant, Lena." Her hands flail wildly, and she leans forward suddenly, her head shaking dramatically, as if each move, each turn could call forth the wind to banish the words from the air. It's Kara Danvers in full-on panic mode. "Gosh no, what I meant was...can you separate yourself, your company, from your family? From your mother and her...actions?"

Lena stares a moment, letting the question and all of its implications sink in. Shifting, she reaches toward the coffee table and picks up a recent edition of CatCo Magazine, holds it up between them, as if it alone holds the answer to Kara's questions.

In a way it does. In the weeks since the first attack on her life, since the first time Kara Danvers, budding journalist with CatCo Magazine, shuffled into her office on the coattails of Clark Kent, she's taken to keeping a copy on hand, keeping up with Kara's work in her own way. Not that she'll admit it. Seeing her name on a by-line is still an infrequent delight, but when it's there, she settles in to read it with a smile on her face.

With the magazine in hand, she asks, "What do you think I've been doing all this time? With Lex? With this place?" She tosses it back down, looks over at Kara before continuing, "What did I tell you the first time you interviewed me?

A ghost of a smile plays on Kara's lips as she responds, word for word, "That you're just a woman trying to make a name for yourself outside of your family."

A smile pulls at her lips. A genuine one. "Exactly. The Luthors are my family. They adopted me. They raised me. And I can't change that. But _my_ name is Lena." Her voice pitches higher, stronger. She yields no ground. "And my mother's aims are not mine. Her choices are not mine. I make my own, for better or worse. And while they may not always be the right ones, I live my own life." A sigh rattles deep in her chest, leaves her jaw trembling, her voice suddenly unsteady. Leaning her head back, the rest follows, albeit quieter, barbed with bitterness, "But it seems no matter how fast I run away, how far I get, it's never quite far enough."

Kara's voice is quiet. "Family's complicated."

With a bittersweet smile, Lena nods, echoes, "Family's complicated."

Silence gathers around them again, thickens the air, crawls into their limbs and weighs them down. Neither seem eager to disrupt it. Or able to, for that matter.

Eventually, when Lena pulls loose, shakes free of the ghosts gripping her thoughts, she grabs the plastic fork that came with her cup and spears a piece of melon. Mostly as something to do, something to occupy her mind, keep it from dwelling on all of the complications inherent in being a Luthor.

But the melon sits like lead on her tongue. She swallows mechanically.

Next to her, Kara breathes deeply, as if coming out of her own reverie, but Lena keeps her head down, focusing instead on another bite, another swallow. It's something, at least.

After a moment, Kara clears her throat and switches gears. "I saw the lobby when I walked in," she says, licking her lips while Lena continues to pick at her food. "Tell me what happened."

Lena's response is smooth, almost robotic, the polished answer of someone long accustomed to dealing in sound bites. "There was an attempted break-in last night. Nothing was stolen. The authorities responded but the intruder was able to get away."

 _At least for a little while…_

Kara is staring at her, her mouth agape. "What?" Lena asks, the longer Kara just...sits there, staring. She lifts her hand up to her mouth, suddenly worried she'll find food in her teeth or on her face, unable to discern the meaning behind Kara's expression.

"But they didn't have to steal it, Lena! You tricked your mother, you played _everyone_." The words rush out of her mouth in a flood, her head shaking in disbelief, eyes wide. As she continues, though, she fails to see Lena freeze by her side, her features suddenly rigid with tension, as if carved in Carrera marble. "You saved the day. You saved _everyone_. Lena, you're a hero!"

"Who told you that?" When she speaks, her voice is barely audible, a shadow of a whisper.

But the quiet is deceiving. After all one word, one voice can start an avalanche. Once word can topple mountains.

And Kara hears it. She stumbles, panic overtaking her voice. "I, uh, I have sources."

 _Ah._ Eyes closed, Lena tilts her head back as she sighs, "Supergirl."

Her jaws clench in disjointed rhythm.

"Off the record," she says quietly, her eyes sliding to Kara's.

Kara nods, clicks her pen and holds her notepad to her chest.

And waits.

Before she responds, Lena takes a moment, her eyes wandering around the office. _Her_ office. When she arrived, she had ordered the whole space redone, doing away with the black marble, all of the dark trappings preferred by her brother, opting instead for walls of light, touches of silver, everything designed to radiate and brighten. The L-Corp logo spins silently on the screen to her left, and something flutters in her chest at the sight.

She thinks it must be pride.

"Kara, do you agree with everything your parents have ever done?" she asks, turning back to look at the journalist sharing her couch. Kara presses her lips together but remains silent. Waiting. "Can you even imagine what that's like, your mother using you, using that bond? Or even worse, being so particularly aware of your mother's disdain for you that you know going into it that she's using you?"

The line in Kara's forehead deepens. But the silence remains.

"My mother _was_ Medusa. Intent on the worst imaginable thing. And she aimed to use me, to use my company to do it."

"We all want to believe the most of our parents, Lena. It's human." Softer, she amends, "It's universal."

She licks her lips, and brings a hand to her face, before turning to Kara, "I knew better. But all this time, all these years, even with reality chasing away all of the doubts, shining a light on every dark corner in our lives, there was still a scrap of hope. There was still a little girl in me wanting to believe it wasn't true. Wanting to hold on to a fairy-tale version of family that never existed."

Moisture pools along the edges of her eyes, and Kara swims in her vision, indistinct and glimmering. "Can you imagine what it feels like, being the one to hold up the mirror and turn it on your own mother…" She trails off.

With a shuddering breath, she swallows harshly, attempts to blink away the threatening tears.

Kara's face is unreadable. She opens her mouth to respond but closes it again without sound. Shifting her glasses, she simply looks down at her hands where they sit in her lap, twisting together in knots.

Picking up her fork once more, Lena picks at the fruit cup in her hand, spears another slice of melon and places it on her tongue without conscious thought. Simply for the purpose of moving. For the purpose of doing _something._

"What I did - it's what anyone would. What anyone should, when faced with such a decision." When she continues, her voice has regained a measure of its strength, and she sounds more like the CEO again. "I won't brag, and I won't use this to further myself or my company. Like it's some sort of leverage." Her throat moves as she swallows harshly again, and her shoulders rise and fall as she regains her breath. "My mother is where she needs to be. That's all that matters."

Another slice of fruit on her tongue like ash.

"I'm sure it will out eventually, just as I'm sure I'll be hearing more from my mother's compatriots. Or my brother's, for that matter…" she says softly, quietly resigned to what the future holds. If Lex was mad about her change in direction for the company, just wait until he hears...

A tear tracks down her cheek. She tries to wipe it away, to wipe it from existence so she can pretend it was never there. But she misses. It falls onto the couch, the fabric instantly darkening with moisture. She can't seem to tear her gaze away from the spot.

She can't take it back. It's too late. There's no more pretending.

A hand reaches out, sets down solidly on her knee where it's angled toward the door. _Kara_. While Lena was lost in thought, Kara has inched closer, reached out to offer comfort. Even through the fabric of her dress, the warmth radiating from Kara's hand is remarkable, and for a moment Lena can think of nothing else. The melancholy of mere seconds before, the uncertainty of the future, the absolute chaos of her life - all of it disappears the second Kara Danvers places her hand atop her knee.

Her world reduced to a touch, impossibly placed beneath the armor she wears so carefully around her limbs, beneath the mask she dons so easily.

With one gesture, the steel bends, melts into the girl next to her.

It's only when Kara speaks that Lena tears her eyes away from the hand at her knee and looks up into the face across from hers. It's equally warm.

"It'll be alright," Kara says, and she means it. She does.

A voice in Lena's head screams that she can't possibly know, can't possibly be that naive, and her heart aches a little with jealousy that Kara can hold on to something so impossible.

She wishes she could believe the same.

But the smile growing on Lena's face is genuine and warm, as if she's drawing power directly from Kara. "Thank you," she says, her eyes intent. With a squeeze, Kara moves her hand away, although she remains close by.

Lena misses the warmth immediately. But she doesn't know how to ask for it back. Doesn't know that she can.

"Look, thank you for coming, Kara. I know you're doing your job, but-" she takes a shuddering breath, "-I suppose I hadn't realized that I needed to talk to someone. You're the only one in this city I can talk to. So, as a friend, thank you." She laughs, but there's a sadness to it that rattles in her heart.

Kara smiles at her again as she stands, puts away her pen and pad. Straightening, she fusses with her glasses once more before saying, "Lena, you can talk to me anytime. Off the record. As a friend. Whatever you need. _Anytime._ "

Placing her fruit cup on the table, Lena stands as well. She doesn't know what comes over her. Momentary madness, perhaps. The need for warmth, maybe, to feel something other than the cold weight of her armor.

She steps forward and reaches out, one arm sliding over the simple cotton on Kara's shoulder, the other around her torso, and pulls her close for a hug.

Kara is stiff in her arms, and Lena can feel the girl's breath catch briefly, but with a shaky exhale Kara relaxes into her, tentatively puts her arms around Lena.

 _God, she's warm._

Lena doesn't linger. The hug is quick, and with a squeeze of emphasis she backs away. Kara doesn't move, though, doesn't breathe - just looks at her, lips parted, a blush creeping along her ears.

 _Oh...oh, that's interesting._

They walk to the door together, in silence, and with a shy smile, a tiny wave, Kara Danvers walks away. Lena watches for a moment before biting her lip and closing the door to her office.

Heading back to her desk, she pulls out her chair and sits, pulls up the budget numbers to prepare for her next meeting.

Sitting quietly, she returns to reading through figures and forecasts, performing calculations in her head and jotting down notes before the budget chair is due to arrive.

Beneath her desk, she rubs absently at the spot on her knee that's still warm to the touch.

* * *

It's late. Again.

The sun gave up hours ago, ceding its territory to the moon, continuing their timeless dance across the heavens. And with it went her staff, trickling out in groups, slowly emptying her office of life and light. Even Jess, stalwart Jess, bid her goodnight an hour ago.

She's all that remains amongst the graves.

When it's quiet like this, empty, it's easy to hear the ghosts. And as a Luthor, she does have her fair share.

Swiveling in her chair, she turns, attempts to gaze out the bank of windows along the outside wall at her back, but the view leaves something to be desired. So with a creak of leather, a few heavy footfalls along the hard floor, she lets herself out onto the balcony. She turns her back on all that the day has held, all the battles, all of the metaphorical bloodshed, and she lets the cool night air soothe her wounds.

The moon is half full, and although she tries, squinting her eyes into the darkness, she can't seem to find any stars.

She misses them, on days like this. Nights like this.

When her parents sent her away to boarding school, there were countless nights spent looking out her window in study, finding and naming the constellations - she knew their real names, of course, but there were nights where she took refuge in creating, giving them their own stories, their own names.

Names, after all, are weighty things.

And there were nights where she did nothing but wish upon the stars. Millions of wishes, whispered fervently and sent floating up into the heavens like kites.

So she finds herself looking skyward again, watching, wishes ready on her tongue.

When a streak of blue and red caroms between the skyscrapers nearby, slows, her eyes are already focused on it. And when Supergirl hovers no more than ten feet out from her balcony, looking for all the world like she's casually leaning on a doorframe, one leg kicked out a little lower than the other, her cape billowing regally around her shoulders, she can't help the amused smirk that breaks out on her face.

"Good evening," Lena offers casually. "To what do I owe this honor, Supergirl?" No matter how many times the Girl of Steel comes to see her the novelty absolutely doesn't wear off. She feels a warm pulse in her heart to know that such a thing is possible.

That she's still capable of such an emotion.

An answering smirk on her face, Supergirl responds, "Last night, I didn't get a chance to talk to you. I was hoping you might be able to spare a minute?"

Lena studies her, the super floating in space across from her, asking for her time. With a slow inclination of her head, she assents, and Supergirl comes forward, landing softly a few feet away along the balcony.

"I do hope you're not here to tell me you were right all along - about my mother, about Cadmus…" Although her tone is teasing, it carries an unmistakable edge to it, razor sharp and daring to be tried.

"No! No, not at all!" Supergirl takes a step forward before stopping herself, cognizant of their boundaries and their histories. Her hands are out in placation, and her head shakes quickly back and forth, blond curls bouncing along her shoulders in emphasis. Something about it tickles in Lena's mind like deja vu, but the thought is like smoke, and it's gone before she even thinks to grasp it.

"Forgive me, it's been a long day, and I've heard a dozen iterations on the theme," she says, drolly. "Haven't you read the papers? We Luthors are all the same."

"No! I...Ms. Luthor, I came here to thank you!"

Still leaning against the railing, Lena freezes in places. Stares, as if she could somehow divine truth from fiction if she just focused hard enough. "What?" is all that she offers in return.

"Thank you. I know what you did, the risk you took. You, Lena Luthor, you saved everyone."

Her brow furrows, the confusion plain on her face. "I wasn't expecting this..."

"I wanted to say something to you last night, but the DEO pulled me back, and you-" Supergirl swallows, considers her words before continuing, "-you seemed to have your hands busy with National City's finest."

"Yes, well, when one's mother gets arrested for attempting to pull off one of the largest mass murder plots in history, it does tend to tie up one's time a bit." Again her tone remains light, even joking, but her eyes are shrouded in shadow.

The sarcasm is a shield, one she's wielded for more than half her life with a fair amount of success. Even if she tried, the impulse to deflect doesn't seem capable of being diminished at this point.

Impossibly, Supergirl huffs out a laugh as she takes a spot against the railing herself, but where Lena angles toward the city, her face shadowed, Supergirl leans back against the metal, and the soft glow of light from the office plays across her face. "Are you always this hard-headed when someone is trying to thank you for saving their world?"

"I'm-" she sighs heavily. "I'm sorry. Like I said, long day. Not a lot in the way of positives today." The spot on her knee glows with a phantom warmth.

"I've seen the headlines. Read the articles. It's not right. Aliens everywhere owe our lives to you. For every article about your mother, about what she tried to do, there should be one about your role in stopping her."

Staring up at the starless sky, Lena laughs humorlessly, "Ah, but you see no one is clamoring to hear about a Luthor doing good. It's an impossible thing."

Taking another step closer, sliding slowly along the railing, Supergirl speaks softly, but her tone is just as emphatic as before. "A Luthor is the only reason my friends...my family are alive right now."

Lena has had a lot of practice in controlling her emotions, governing her facial expressions and keeping a tight leash on her reactions. But the clench of her jaw, the rapid blinking, they give her shock away. Silence settles between them, but after a moment Lena drags her eyes away from the sky, turns her head just enough to meet Supergirl's gaze, to measure it.

A single nod of acknowledgment. Thank you and you're welcome condensed into one efficient movement.

The smile that breaks out on Supergirl's face outshines the moon tonight, chases the shadows from under Lena's eyes. With a quick movement, the Girl of Steel turns along the rail and faces outward alongside Lena. They stand side by side, leaning against the cool metal and looking out over the city in companionable silence.

"The world would have changed last night. Irrevocably. And not just for me or my kind. When that missile detonated, I thought it was all over. I thought...I thought I wouldn't get to see my friends again, wouldn't get to laugh with them, hear stories of their homes, their families." She nods her head, gesturing below. "I thought it was all over." Her voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, and her hands clench the rail like vices.

"I've done it once," she says, her head bowed, glancing up at Lena under her lashes. "Watched everyone I love die - my parents, my friends. Everyone. I don't think I could have survived it a second time. I don't think I'm strong enough."

Lena watches her surreptitiously, waiting on the rest.

"There's one thing I don't understand." A line develops on her forehead as she continues, "Why didn't you tell me what you were planning? I mean with the gala a few weeks ago, I get that. Sort of. But again?" Supergirl's head shakes slowly as she processes through the thought. "I thought we made a pretty good team. A Luthor and a Super. So why the secret?"

Turning, resting one arm on the rail and facing Lena in profile, she says, "You didn't have to take on your mother alone, you know? You're not alone here in National City, Ms. Luthor."

Lena doesn't respond immediately. Her eyes continue to wander across the rooftops, along the streets, up into the sky. When she finally turns her body, mirroring Supergirl's stance, her body leaning on one arm against the rail, the light filtering through the windows of her office washes half her face in brightness. The other half remains in shadow, bleeding into the night sky.

Slowly, like one might with a frightened child or pet, she raises her hand and reaches forward, her arm crossing the distance between them. She stops shy, her palm hovering an inch from the top of the crest emblazoned on the suit.

Warmth emanates seemingly from the crest just beyond her reach, and she fights the impulse to stretch, to move closer and steal a touch of it to warm her bones.

"This. This crest. Most families tell stories of vacations and inside jokes and all number of things in their histories, things that they bond over. Things that they share. My family tells stories of this." She nods her head toward the crest in emphasis.

"With Lex and Superman, and then when he...when he went away, my mother took up his rants with equal fervor. God, maybe even more. It filled the house, like a phantom lurking behind every door, standing over every shoulder. It was everywhere."

She withdraws her hand while Supergirl looks on in concern. "You have no idea how hard a time I have believing or understanding how someone like you, someone who wears that crest so proudly could ever believe me, or could ever really see my actions for what they are…"

Silence falls between them again, and Lena takes her time gathering her thoughts.

"When you told me that my mother was involved, was in charge, no less, I knew what the stakes were. I couldn't risk it, I couldn't take the chance that you wouldn't believe my intentions. So I played the only card I could. Or the only card I thought I could."

Supergirl's hand clenches and releases along the rail, but she doesn't speak.

"My mother is a user. She's cold, calculating. And she was going to get what she wanted, with or without me. Or...through me, if need be. So I used that against her." When Lena laughs, her voice is humorless, and although her body remains still, she turns her face away, sinking back into the night.

"She taught me well, my mother. I learned to be ruthless at her knee. Maybe I'm her daughter after all."

When Supergirl speaks, her voice is quiet. "Do you know what this crest means?"

Lena looks at her and answers almost mechanically. "It's your family crest." 

"Right, this is my family name. But…" she says, and waits until Lena turns, faces her fully once more. "It also stands for a Kryptonian phrase, our family motto. El mayarah." The words are melodic when she speaks them, and Lena straightens.

"It means, stronger together." Supergirl raises her hand in mimicry of Lena moments before, reaches out until her hand hovers inches from Lena's heart.

"You are not your name, Lena Luthor. You are who you decide to be. And you've decided to be a hero."

Lena swallows harshly, and her lips part in shock. No words come.

But Supergirl isn't finished.

"You are a hero. So thank you. Thank you for being my hero."

Moisture prickles at her eyes for the second time today, and with a watery smile, Lena speaks slowly, emphasizing every word. "You are very welcome, Supergirl."

The Girl of Steel smiles, and it's so bright, so luminous for a moment Lena thinks the moon might retreat, ceding territory to the sun hours ahead of schedule.

They don't speak again. No words are needed, after all.

Supergirl takes a step back, and then another. And with a softening smile, she kicks off, flies into the night.

Lena is left staring after her, stardust flickering in her veins.


	3. Chapter 3

_Current Day_

"We'll take you live to the scene with our on-site reporter, Victoria Arredondo, when we return. Until then, keep it tuned to KJPT News for the latest."

As the screen darkens and the studio fades to black, the insistent drumbeat of the breaking news jingle fades along with it. In its place a new scene appears: low-quality, wide panning shots of cars and trucks lined up with military precision, every one with neon signs of green or yellow or pink in their windows reading "SALE!" or "0% DOWN!" The somber voices of National City's leading news reporters give way to a garish spokesman promising "a steal of a deal" at the top of his lungs to anyone in need of a new or used vehicle this weekend. The juxtaposition is jarring.

Not that Lena notices.

To be honest, the world outside her mind has all but faded from existence in the last several minutes. As the news drumbeat sounds again, signaling a return to the measured voices and stoic faces, Lena remains unmoving where she sits in a heap on the floor, her eyes unfocused, unseeing. Thumping heavily against her ribcage, her heart beats out a wild tattoo - quickly, too quickly. Blood roars in her ears in a constant hum. It's hypnotic, the rhythm, the noise, and she sinks into it willingly and lets it sweep her away on the riptide. A woman disconnected.

The human brain is a curious thing, able to vacillate between alarmingly masochistic in one moment and fiercely overprotective the next. In this moment, Lena finds herself in the latter category. Faced with a reality too sharp, a keen blade held firmly against her neck, her brain tries desperately to convince itself that it possesses the capability to bargain its way out of danger.

As if she could add enough weight to the scales, offer enough in compensation to tip them in her favor, to remove the point of the blade where it cuts into her skin.

On the desk across from her, the computer screen fades to black once more, but this time it remains dark, asleep after a stretch of inactivity. When the colors disappear, the screen drained and lifeless, the low lighting conspires against her, turning the sleek, shiny surface into a makeshift mirror. Lena finds herself looking into her reflection.

She's not sure how long she's been there on the floor behind her desk. Long enough for her limbs to stiffen, long enough for her eyes to dry. But she can see the remnants in her reflection, and when she raises her hand to her cheek, her fingers are able to trace the salty tracks down to her chin.

She blinks. Again and again. The specter in the screen, pale as a ghost, does the same.

With a breath that rattles like bones in her lungs, she pulls her eyes away, unable to face the haunted face staring back at her.

When she turns her head, takes in her surroundings - the open balcony door, the immaculate display shelves, the wide expanse of white desk, radiant like the moon in her shadowed office - the spark of familiarity is gone. She's a stranger waking up in a strange land.

Standing is a painful process, her knees screaming after the long minutes spent awkwardly on the floor, and her first few steps are unsteady, like a drunken partygoer after too much revelry. Reaching a hand out, she steadies herself on the threshold of the balcony.

The wind is light, but it carries the sound of sirens on its fingertips. Their number has grown, their warnings screaming into the night at different speeds and varying pitches like a dissonant post-modern masterpiece.

Standing in the doorway, the symphony washes over her, as bracing as an ice bath. It brings her back to life, calls to the glaciers in her veins, straightens her spine in an instant.

Its chilled fingers chase the ghosts from her eyes.

In two efficient steps she crosses to the railing, picks up her phone where it sits upended, face down from...earlier. The face is miraculously unscratched. With a tentative touch, she opens her contact list, finds Kara and her ridiculous photo.

But it doesn't make her smile like it did before. Instead, something clenches in her chest, sudden and painful, like a hand wrapped around her heart.

It robs her of breath, leaves her gasping into the burgeoning night.

She hits dial. It rings and rings and rings.

Her free hand clenches and unclenches against her thigh, and she closes her eyes, mutters a prayer under her breath, another attempt at a devil's bargain.

But the wind snatches away her words, throws them over the railing and into the streets below where the sirens swallow them whole.

In her ear, she hears a familiar voice, "Hi, you've reached Kara Danvers. Please leave a message, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks!"

She hangs up. Redials.

"Hi, you've reached Kara Danvers. Please-"

Hangs up. Dials again.

As if it were a fluke. As if the outcome will change.

 _It has to change._

When she finally lets her hand fall, the phone dark and silent against the fabric of her dress, she pulls her shoulders back, raises her chin, her jaw set. She's a Luthor, after all, and Luthors don't just sit back and take what the world throws their way.

They take control.

 _Click click click..._ she whips around, turning her back on the city. The air swirls around her legs like a phantom, the shadows cling to her shoulders like a cloak. Stalking back into her office, she passes the desk without slowing, past the coffee table with its delicate white flowers, past her coat where it hangs on the rack. Not that she grabs it. Nor her bag.

Armed with only her cell phone, she marches out the door and through the main office, passing deserted desks and dark computers, the open room filled with an expectant electric hum. Another set of glass doors and she's clear to the entryway, but instead of warm, inviting, tonight the wall of light is too bright for her stormy eyes. With a manicured hand, she presses the button for the elevator, and without delay, the door to her left dings, slides open expectantly.

When she reaches the ground floor, it's a short distance to the front door, one she traverses in record time, her heels echoing resolutely in the cavernous space. The driver's side door opens, her driver stepping out when he sees her hurrying down the steps, and he rounds the front of the car in a few swift steps so that he can open the rear passenger door - their usual routine.

But tonight she doesn't stop. Doesn't even slow. She continues purposefully around the bumper, and he closes the rear door in confusion, calling out to her as he follows, "Ms. Luthor?"

"Give me the keys."

"I...pardon?"

She wrenches the driver's door open, slides into the seat with ease, the leather warm against her back. Another moment and she shifts the seat forward to accommodate her stature. The driver stands to the side, unsure, looking at her like she's grown a second head.

Turning her head, she says coolly, "I need the keys, Daniel."

A beat passes. Another. And then with a nod and a hastily muttered "Yes ma'am," he reaches into his pocket and produces a sleek fob. Placing it into the cup holder in the console alongside her phone, she reaches forward, presses the start button on the dash. The engine roars to life, and the growl climbs up through her fingertips where they grip the wheel.

"Thank you," she says in response. He's still standing in the open door, and she looks at him, eyebrow raised. Still bewildered, he steps back, pushes the door closed, offering a quiet "Be careful, ma'am."

The tires squeal and catch, and by the time the smoke settles, Daniel is alone on the street outside of L-Corp, hands on his hips, watching the red taillights fade in the distance.

It's weird being behind the wheel again. It's been ages since she's driven herself. But here she is, no driver, no bodyguard, no security detail.

 _Supergirl...Kara is going to kill her for that._

Pushing the thought from her mind, she grips the wheel tighter, her hands grateful for something to do. It's cathartic, the movement, the action. It helps.

Up ahead the light turns red. She slows as she approaches the intersection, looking left, looking right, and then presses her foot harder onto the gas pedal. The engine growls in response, and she sails through the empty intersection in a blur of polished metal and chrome.

When she turns onto a surface street that will take her most of the way to her destination, she reaches down to grab the phone out of the console. Past parked cars, darkened windows and shops as bright as midday, the scenery slides by in a dizzying array. But she doesn't see it. The city goes unnoticed, all of it irrelevant.

The phone is bright in her hand, and she scrolls through her contacts to find the one she's after: Alex Danvers. This particular number is a relatively new addition to the phonebook.

As unrest has increased in the city, and as her mother's compatriots have been making themselves...known, the threats to her, her corporation have grown, a situation that has brought her more frequently into contact with the authorities. While there's only been one credible threat, so far, there's a promise of more to come. When the one last week had gotten uncomfortably close, the older Danvers had reached out, handed Lena her number. "Just in case," she'd said. Alex Danvers of the FBI.

When she presses dial, waits for the ringtone, it only just now dawns on her that it's entirely possible, even probable, that Kara's not the only Danvers hiding her identity. Her head spins at the possibility, and she bites her lip to keep her focus. So much subterfuge...it'll be ages before she can separate out the truth from fiction.

She huffs out a laugh, mirthless and quiet in the darkened car.

 _I'm such a fool._

"This is Danvers. Leave a message." Alex's voicemail message is brusque, a stark contrast to her sister's. Lena hits disconnect without bothering to leave a voicemail.

A scream builds in her lungs, climbs with sharpened nails into her throat, struggling to break free. It takes everything she has to swallow it back down, lock it away. She tastes blood on her tongue from the struggle.

She can still feel its claws, sharp and insistent in her chest. But if she lets it out now...if she starts to come undone…

 _No_.

Up ahead the light clicks from green to yellow, but she doesn't slow. Dropping the phone into her lap, she presses her right foot even harder, and the car screams through the intersection like a banshee. There's a squeal of tires off to her right, a cascade of honks, but they amount to nothing.

Lena never breaks her stride.

When she can no longer hear the sirens, when their insistent cries have been swallowed by the city's twisting alleys and glittering skyscrapers, she finds the silence unbearable. While her voice may be caged, her thoughts aren't nearly as fettered. They raise questions, endless scenarios like morbid magicians.

With a press of a button, the radio comes to life, and she fiddles with the presets, one after the other, until she finds one carrying local news. Looking up, tail lights loom in her field of vision, and she jerks the wheel hard to the left, swerving and skipping wildly to avoid rear-ending a car daring to go the speed limit.

A tinny voice begins speaking on the radio, and she cranks up the volume until it fills the car, every surface echoing with sound. The broadcast is in progress.

"...receiving reports of a bombing attempt at City Hall less than an hour ago. Eyewitnesses say that Supergirl arrived on scene and removed the device, carrying it a safe distance out of town, saving the lives of hundreds of people who had gathered for the mayor's town hall meeting. There's speculation that the device may have detonated in the skies over National City, before Supergirl was able to get away, but we have no confirmation on the exact chain of events at this time, and no word yet on the condition of the Girl of Steel. In other news-"

Lena's hand hovers over the dial, ghostly white in the shadowed interior. Half of her wants to turn it off, to silence the voice confirming her fears in measured cadence, cool, as emotionless as if he's reading a grocery list. But after a moment she withdraws her hand, places it back upon the wheel. The voice drones on.

As the streets turn quieter, the outskirts of downtown giving way to a gentrifying residential area, its corners bright with kitschy shops and hipster restaurants, Lena's eyes are sharp. When the nondescript brick building comes into view, she slams on the brakes, her car screeching to a halt in the middle of the street. She throws the car in park and climbs out, barely managing to close the door behind her before heading inside, leaving her vehicle double-parked.

She doesn't run. She won't allow herself that. But her stride is brisk, her legs a blur as she hurries through the lobby door and up into the stairwell, and each step, each inch closer to Kara's place speeds her movements, as if pulled by a magnet. Her heart hammers wildly in her chest, the blood throbbing in her ears once more, and when she reaches Kara's door, she pounds on it with her fist in syncopated rhythm with her veins.

"Kara!" she shouts, heedless of the neighbors. She knocks again and again.

"Please, please be home…" she says more softly. A prayer.

But there's no answer. No "just a minute!" No creaking to signify the padding of feet across the wooden floor. There are no signs of life at all.

And she knew she wouldn't be here. She _knew_ it, but she had to check, had to be sure Kara wasn't sitting inside on the couch in her flannel pajamas, a pizza box in her lap, ready to laugh deliriously at Lena's left field theory that she, a rookie reporter for CatCo magazine, was actually the city's beloved superhero.

The silence from the apartment is deafening, and she winces at the pain, her eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment.

Leaning her forehead against the door, cool and solid beneath her skin, she opens her phone and hits redial.

"This is Danvers. Leave a message."

The hall around her spins, brick and wood and glass spiraling together in a kaleidoscope that leaves her trembling.

She'd promised - promised! - that she could call her when she was in trouble, when she needed help. Alex had promised her that she'd respond.

Anger simmers white and hot in her veins. And she lets it.

After all, anger can be a useful tool, a catalyst when channeled properly. Now...now it provides the will to move.

Because if she's not moving, not seeking out a way to take back some control, then what's left?

 _Nothing._

Without movement, she'll fall apart at the seams, dissemble right here on the sixth-floor landing of a renovated loft.

And that's not an acceptable option.

 _Click click click_.

Down the stairs, and out into the night, she slides behind the wheel once more. When the engine roars, its power resonating in her outstretched hands, she makes an illegal U-turn and heads west. Back toward the park on the other side of downtown, out to where Supergirl fell from the heavens.

The sky overhead has darkened considerably, the bruised purple deepening to uneasy black. There are no stars dotting the horizon tonight.

The drive across town is...eventful. Lena drives like a woman possessed, hurling invectives at drivers foolish enough to get in her way, swearing like a sailor at any delay, cutting in and out of slow moving traffic like a seasoned racecar driver. It's a minor miracle she doesn't get pulled over along the way.

Not that that would have slowed her any.

Even so, with every mile the symphony of sirens increases, the music building slowly to a crescendo. When she turns onto the street she knows will take her to the park, to the...crash site, she's forced to slam on her brakes, coming up short behind a sea of tail lights, red and innumerable. The whole area is choked with cars, and forward movement slows to a trickle, progress measured in feet, in inches rather than miles.

Anger rises again, impotent and frustrated, and her hands tremble at the outrage. Her screams like wild things dig their nails into her throat once more.

The tinny voice on the radio breaks in with promises of news from bystanders, reports that an unresponsive Supergirl has been taken by a fleet of government type officials, that NCPD is on scene en masse.

Overhead, a new sound adds its aria to the score. Glancing out the window, she spies the source - a helicopter with NCPD emblazoned on its side.

And that's when she feels it, the mask sliding silently into place on well-oiled tracks, can feel its effect on her muscles, the small pull here, the stretch there, sculpting her ever so subtly to its exacting specifications.

She's transformed, her blood cooled, her face stone.

Save for the single tear sliding slowly down her marble cheek.

When she picks her phone up once more, the number she dials this time isn't one she's ever had need to call before - NCPD headquarters. Her voice is calm and even, but there's a threat underlying every tone, every syllable. Her rivals, her heads of department know this voice well; it frequently emerges during tense business meetings. It's the voice of a CEO, the one that brooks no argument.

The one that runs an empire like a machine.

After a few rings, a desk sergeant answers, his voice gruff and uninterested.

Lena pays him no mind. "Hello, my name is Lena Luthor. I need to speak with Detective Maggie Sawyer immediately. It's about tonight's attack."

Whether it's the name or the commanding tone that seals it, she can't say, but the sergeant doesn't put up a fight. "Hold please."

The wait is interminable. She stares straight ahead into the sea of red, barely blinking, barely moving, the mask cool against her skin.

There's a soft click on the line. Finally. "Sawyer."

"Detective," she responds.

"Ms. Luthor, what can I do for you?" Maggie asks. Her voice is drowned by sirens, shrill and incessant. But there's a ding of a car door, and the noise fades.

Lena doesn't ask. Not really. It's a demand. "I need to see her. Kara. Supergirl. I need to see her."

There's a pause before Maggie responds, a new tone in her voice, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Lena responds with steel, a crack forming in the mask she wears. "Don't patronize me, dammit! I know!" She pauses, calms herself with a breath before continuing. "I _know._ I need to see her."

"You're not making any sense-"

"It's just a fucking pair of glasses," her voice breaks, the mask splintering around her. "Just tell me where they've taken my girlfriend!"

The line is silent.

"Alex is going to kill me for this…" Maggie sighs, almost to herself. When she speaks again, her voice is more sure, "Where you at?"

"Stuck in a sea of cars three blocks from the park."

"Can you get out of there? Onto a side street?"

"I'll do what I have to do, Detective."

"Alright, can you get to Parker St. from there? Turn there and park. I'm coming to get you." There's a sound of an engine coming to life, and then the call goes dead.

The line of cars creeps forward, but Lena is in no mood to wait. Cutting the wheel hard to the right, she urges her car over the curb and finds herself skirting the remaining few vehicles between her and her turn. Horns and shouts echo off the surrounding buildings in a cacophonous tempest, and she gathers them like wind in her sails, using them to propel her forward.

Parker Street is gloriously empty, and she pulls over in the first available spot. When she kills the engine, the only sound that remains is the ever-present siren call. She breathes deeply - in and out - again and again and again, trying desperately to piece together the remains of her mask. It's a weak imitation, and when the sirens aren't enough to silence her thoughts, she reaches for her phone once more, runs her hesitant fingers along the screen before unlocking it.

"Hi, you've reached Kara Danvers…"

She sits, listening to her girlfriend's voice, concentrating with every atom of her being.

When she dials again, hears the sunshine through the speaker, the hand that has gripped her heart in a vice all night loosens ever so slightly. Even when she's not here, even when...even now, Kara Danvers manages to soothe her nerves where they're raw and bleeding. A balm. A cure.

Headlights approach from the opposite direction, and within seconds an NCPD car rolls to a stop as it pulls even with her own. Lena doesn't hesitate. While she unfolds herself from her car, Maggie rolls down the window, sitting in the driver's seat drowning in an oversized NCPD windbreaker, looking up at Lena with a furrowed brow, her head cocked to the side.

"You look like shit, Luthor." The words aren't meant to be harsh. In fact, the delivery is quite soft, the detective's eyes warm and sympathetic in the dim glow from the car's interior lights. "Get in."


	4. Chapter 4

_Seven Weeks Ago_

"I'd be better off with a staff full of chimpanzees!"

He doesn't yell, exactly. Doesn't have to. There isn't an ear in the room that's not tuned to his low, sardonic words already. Besides, what he lacks in volume he makes up for in contempt.

"Oh I'm sure I'd still be knee-deep in excrement, but maybe, just _maybe_ , one of them might actually know how to use a comma!"

He slams his office door closed behind him, the force rattling the translucent glass in its frame, the tall black letters spelling out "Snapper" Carr across the center quaking down to their foundations.

"Hmm," Lena mutters under her breath where she stands in the doorway, an eyebrow quirked in reserved judgment. As the wall stills and the murmurs in the room pick up again, she turns her attention back to the task at hand, her eyes roaming the room, looking for -

 _There_. Standing near a desk maybe fifteen feet away. Her hair is pulled up in braids today, and they ring her head like a circlet of amber, simple and elegant.

Her target spotted, Lena wades through the harried office to where Kara stands with her back to the door. As she approaches, she gets a glimpse of the sympathetic look on the young journalist's face. Across the way is the object of her sympathy, an older woman who looks like she's just been told her dog died, her lip quivering, her cheeks aflame, clearly the catalyst for Snapper's rant.

Lena can't help herself. When she nears, she stays one step back and to the side, just barely out of Kara's sight. In a voice low, conspiratorial, she comments, "He's a charmer…"

Kara startles, her head whipping around in a blur, her braids straining against their pins with the sudden movement, but Lena doesn't bat an eye. Instead, she stands in strict imitation of Kara moments before, watching the woman across the way pretend she's completely fine.

It's a fascinating sensation, feeling Kara's eyes on her, the sudden intake of breath, the fluttering lashes. And where her eyes land - sliding across her cheek, down the column of her neck, the length of her arm, and back up again - she feels a line, boiling, marking her porcelain skin with incandescent patterns.

A long moment passes, expectant, and Kara finally responds, her voice a whisper, "He's...something, alright."

When Lena finally breaks her vigil, Kara breaks into a wide smile. "Hi."

"Hi," Lena responds, the smile plain in her voice.

"What are you doing here?" Kara asks. When Lena merely raises an eyebrow at the question, Kara's eyes widen, and she begins to ramble. "I mean, yay you're here! But what, um, brings you to the lowly world of the media? Right into the vipers' nest, so to speak," she finishes, reaching up to adjust her glasses.

"Well, I actually had a business meeting a few blocks up this morning," Lena begins in explanation while Kara looks on expectantly. "And I thought that since I was over this way I would pop in, see if you might care to join me for lunch?" She bites her lower lip unconsciously, a nervous habit left over from childhood, something she's tried to get better at controlling over the years.

But some things, it seems, will not be banished to the shadows.

"I love lunch!" Kara replies enthusiastically, eyes settling on her lips. Lena huffs out an amused laugh at the answer, and Kara shakes her head, starts over. "I mean, I'd love to get some lunch. With you. Just...let me grab my coat, OK?"

Feeling a little uncomfortable waiting alone, in spite of the crowd, Lena ambles back toward the exit. The CatCo employees around her begin to take notice, staring unabashedly, curious at the interloper in their midst. Even Snapper, appearing in the doorway of his office, glasses pushed high atop his head, narrows his eyes when he sees her. He narrows them further when Kara returns to her side. Lena returns his gaze without blinking, her face carefully neutral, and when he turns away, a deep line marring his brow, she feels a sophomoric satisfaction at her imagined victory.

"Ready?" Kara asks when she walks up, a muted red-orange corduroy blazer added atop her monochromatic dress. It's the kind of thing one might find in CatCo Magazine - _except they'd call this color pumpkin spice or cinnamon bark or something else trendy yet utterly banal_. It's a maple tree, caught in its autumnal slide from orange to red, like the ones that covered the campus of the boarding school she went to as a child, and a warmth blooms in her chest at the sudden memories, cozy and familiar. She has to curl her fingers into her palm to keep from reaching out to run her hand along the ridges of fabric.

"You have a preference?" Lena asks when they're on the elevator, and before she even has a chance to respond, a low growl sounds from Kara's stomach.

Eyes lowered self-consciously, one hand placed delicately atop her abdomen, she answers, "I promise, just as long as there's food, I'm a happy camper."

"I'll keep that in mind," Lena says on a laugh that echoes off the elevator walls, melodic in the enclosed space.

When they leave the metallic confines of CatCo behind, the brilliant blue sky opens overhead, clouds few and far between, a refreshingly beautiful day in National City. The chill that has settled over the city in the last few weeks has seemingly halted in its tracks, and Lena's skin warms and reddens when the sun reaches down and runs its fingers across it. Half of the city seems to be out enjoying the break in the weather, the surrounding buildings emptying as their inhabitants swarm the streets in droves as if they've all come to some unspoken mutual agreement.

Side by side, or as much as possible in the crowd, the pair stroll northward a few blocks in the direction of midtown. A companionable silence settles over them as they walk, moving through alternating passages of balmy sunlight and chilled corridors, where the city's skyscrapers cut into the blue sky and trail shadows along the streets below. Rushing between the buildings, the cool wind crawls along the heated skin at her neck, exposed to the elements where her hair is pulled into a sleek ponytail. She shivers.

Around them the sidewalks are choked with the midday lunch crowd - herds of business men shedding their coats on their way to lunch, caught up in talk of budgets and bosses, women in small groups, chatting animatedly on their breaks, and kids from the nearby charter school sitting atop low walls, shouting and playing with one another in the carefree way that only children can manage.

The city is alive. It sparks in her lungs, burns electric in her veins. Each step energizing. Each step freeing.

Tucked back on a side-street the restaurant is the definition of nondescript, its dingy brick walls bearing no name, its windows boasting no hours. A lone dragon guards the entrance, lustrous red with eyes of sparkling obsidian, mounted with care in the masonry above the door.

A hostess seats them at a cozy table near the back of the room, and Kara, her eyes ravenous, wastes no time opening the menu in front of her, which promises the best "gourmasian" fare in the city.

"I've never even heard of this place," Kara mumbles, her lips pulling together in silent "oh's" and "ah's" as she reads through the dishes.

"Their potstickers are a-maz-ing," Lena responds from behind her own menu. Kara glances up at her, mouth open, looking for all the world like a child waking up on Christmas morning to a veritable sea of presents under the tree.

When the waiter returns, bearing a glass of water for each and taking their orders in turn, Lena settles back against her chair and Kara leans forward, elbows on the table. "So how was your meeting this morning," Kara asks, taking a sip from her glass.

"Dreadful."

Kara's brows crease in response, and Lena immediately wishes she hadn't spoken, hadn't been the one to mar the wondrous expression on her face. So she backpedals. "I mean not _dreadful_. Not really. Business-wise it was...productive." Kara's face smooths as she continues. "We're working on forming a partnership with a couple of local firms to subcontract out some work. Nothing too exciting to report, I'm afraid."

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"Mostly it was a morning full of meetings with a bunch of slimy men who think that telling me what they _assume_ I want to hear in their patronizing voices is somehow all they need to do to gain my favor or get me to lower my requirements."

Her lips pursed, fingers playing idly with the straw in her glass, she continues, "You have no idea how exhausting it is, spending the day surrounded by sycophants, people either unwilling or unable to speak their minds."

When she looks up at Kara across the table, her face softens. "You can imagine how refreshing it can be when someone, say...a journalist," she says, a smile creeping into her voice, "shows up, ready and willing to argue the moral complexities of your company's product direction."

Kara grins shyly and looks down at her lap at the fondness lacing her words. Lena watches her a moment before speaking again.

"The man this morning...your boss, I presume?" A nod in affirmation. "Is he always that pleasant?" she asks, taking another sip from her glass.

"Gosh, no, sometimes he's actually mean," Kara responds with a straight face. Or as close to one as she can manage. The corner of her mouth pulls slightly upwards where she tries to contain herself. When Lena lets out a sudden bark of laughter, far harder than she had intended, Kara gives up trying to suppress it, her face breaking into a wide smile at the sound.

"He literally stole candy from a baby once," she continues, her hands gesturing in emphasis. "Or at least that's what I heard. It was before I started working for him." Pushing her glasses up along the bridge of her nose, she says wistfully, "I never thought I'd work for someone who makes me long for the kinder, gentler days of being Cat Grant's assistant."

She pauses, taking another sip of her drink, and her tone turns thoughtful. "In spite of that, I do think he's making me better. He knows what buttons to push to get me to go out and prove him wrong, you know?"

"Speaking of, I read your article on the whole business with Cadmus and my mother last week. I wanted to thank you." Kara tilts her head as she listens. "It's just about the only one that didn't feel like a hit piece on the entire Luthor family, myself included."

A shrug of the shoulders. "I just write the truth, Lena."

She doesn't respond, doesn't really know how to. Instead, she finds herself studying Kara's face, her eyes, searching for a tell, a sign that it's all a bluff. Long seconds pass in silence.

The waiter returns, placing plates of steaming food in front of the pair. At the sight of the mountain of potstickers piled high in front of her, Kara's face lights up, and when she takes her first bite, the filling oozing onto her tongue, she moans indecently, her eyes closed, her head tipped back against her chair.

Across the table, Lena shifts in her seat and swallows harshly before clearing her throat. When she speaks, her voice is low, a hint of a silken edge. "Do you two need a moment alone?"

The flush starts at her ears and creeps into her neck, her cheeks with surprising rapidity. When her phone beeps, with a mumbled "Excuse me," she gladly dips her hand into her coat pocket to retrieve it, thankful for the distraction.

Lena takes another bite of her pork belly lettuce wrap, her green eyes sparkling with amusement.

"It's just my sister," Kara says, typing out a quick response before sliding the phone back into her pocket. "Checking to see if we're still good for game night tonight. Danvers Sisters tradition." She places another potsticker in her mouth, somehow managing to remain quiet this time around.

"Ah, right, the FBI agent." Kara nods. "You two seem close. Was that always the case?"

"Not at first, no. When the Danvers first adopted me, let's just say there was some...adjusting." She grins softly to herself before taking another bite of food. "Alex was an only child until I came along, and more often than not she got stuck looking after me. And, believe it or not, I wasn't always that easy to deal with."

Her face turns sad, her expression focused inward as she continues, "She was usually so responsible, though. Way more than she should have been for a kid. My parents were great. They loved me, but Alex - she's been my best friend since I got here."

Lena stills, fork suspended in mid-air, her face inscrutable. "You're adopted? I...had no idea, Kara." Her eyes turn serious. "How old were you?"

"Thirteen. I was thirteen. My parents, they...they died. And the Danvers, they took me in, treated me like one of their own. But, um-" her brows furrow "-I came with a lot of issues, you could say. I know it wasn't easy for them, helping me acclimate to my new, um, situation." She swallows thickly and skewers another potsticker on her fork before turning her attention back to Lena. "How old were you when the Luthors took you in?"

"I was four. It was my adoptive father's idea, adopting me. He was indulgent." Her tone is wistful, her eyes a million miles away. "And Lex, Lex was amazing. We were thick as thieves," she says conspiratorially, a sly smile creeping up her face. "He took me under his wing. We had our own traditions, him and me. Had our own clubhouse for awhile out in the back. When I was six or so, he came up with a secret code so we could write letters to each other like spies, like we were secret agents on a big case."

She sips from her water, runs her thumb through the condensation along the side of the glass. A drop rolls across the back of her thumb, falls to the table cloth in one smooth motion. She watches the dark spot spread in an imperfect circle.

"His...change was really hard for me. He grew cold, paranoid," she says softly, swallowing thickly, the words sticking in her throat like glass. "I tried to talk to him, but it was like he couldn't hear me, you know? Like I was speaking another language, one he couldn't decipher. He and my mother sort of fed each other's delusions until he was just...gone."

"I'm so sorry, Lena. Look, you don't have to- I mean if it's too painful-"

"No," Lena shakes her head, waving off the concern, "I came to terms with that a long time ago. The brother I knew, the brother I loved, he's gone." She looks up, a small smile on her lips, but it's a dull thing, a cheap imitation. "The memories I have of him are warm, and that's what I choose to remember. I grieve for the brother I lost."

"So what's your favorite memory of him?"

She's silent a moment, her mind cycling back through a catalog of memories, some smooth and worn with years of frequent examinations, some dusty with disuse, but she considers them one by one, turning them every which way and finding them inadequate or too personal or any shade in between, until finally, she reaches one that sparks a smile, slow and nostalgic.

"I was maybe eight at the time. It was summertime, and we were getting on our parents' nerves, _naturally_ , so our nanny took us to the science museum to get us out of the way, out of their hair. We were...awful," she says, decades' old guilt creeping into her voice at the memory. "We snuck away from her in the crowd, and after we had a good laugh watching her try to find us, we sort of just...toured the place on our own."

"In one room they had this giant plasma ball. You know the kind, right? Where you put your hand against the glass and little filaments of plasma sort of spark toward it." She holds her hands up, about a foot apart over her plate as if to demonstrate. "It was totally fascinating on its own when you're a kid, but Lex, he got this sort of...mischievous gleam in his eye, and he asked me if I wanted to see something cool."

"And you did," Kara supplies in amusement.

"And I did," Lena confirms with a grin. "What kid wouldn't, right? So after making sure there weren't any adults watching, he reached into his pocket and brought out a stick of gum. The gum he popped into his mouth, but the foil wrapper, well _that_ he placed on top of the plasma ball, and then he brought out a coin and placed it on top of the foil. When he knew he had my attention, he held his finger over it-" she extends her finger toward the center of the table, and Kara follows the movement with rapt attention, "-and a tiny bolt of lightning, bright purple, shot up from the ball and into his finger."

"Of course, now I know the forces at play, the science of it, but at the time, I remember thinking my brother was a magician, and that he had somehow removed the glass beneath the foil and set the lightning free into the museum."

She begins to chuckle quietly as she continues, "And I will never forget. He still had his finger on top of the coin, there were still violet sparks tickling his fingertip where the current ionized the nitrogen in the air, and he looked over at me with this completely straight face and said, 'Hey, is my hair standing up?'"

By the time the last word crosses her lips, Lena is laughing so hard she almost wheezes. "He was totally bald by then," she gasps by way of explanation, and Kara laughs in tandem, reaching up to cover her mouth, but their laughter escapes, bounds through the restaurant unfettered.

Customers at the tables nearby turn to stare at the outburst, clucking their tongues in disapproval, whispering to one another in hushed tones, but neither woman pays any attention. Neither woman remembers there's anyone else in the room.

When the laughter dies down, Lena wiping the ridiculous tears out of her eyes, Kara says, "Sounds like science runs in your family. Are you sure you aren't a Danvers?" She narrows her eyes in mock scrutiny. "You'd like them, I think. Science is in their genes. I...didn't get as much of that. I mean, there are ways in which I'm never going to be a true Danvers," she says, and her smile holds a sad edge.

"Quid pro quo. What's your favorite memory with your sister?" Lena prompts, her eyes zeroed in on the fading smile on Kara's face, the corners of her mouth flattening, beginning to fall into a frown. Like a wildflower pulling back its petals as the night falls, a frown on Kara Danvers' face just seems...unjust. A mockery of the natural order.

The silence grows. More than once Kara opens her mouth, begins to say something, but each time she changes her mind and closes it again. When she does finally answer, her words are halting, as if she's taking great care to pick just the right ones.

"It's not one memory, per se. It's a tradition, really. My birthday." She licks her lips and continues, "I spend every birthday since I was adopted with Alex. No matter what else is going on in our lives. One year my birthday fell during the week, and she was supposed to be away at college, and I was totally bummed. But I came home from school, and there she was, waiting on me."

Warmth bubbles in Lena's veins at the sight of Kara's emergent grin.

"One year I dragged her out to do karaoke, which I know she totally hated, but she spent the whole night indulging me." Kara beams as she explains, "Gosh, we went through like, half of the songs from Grease. It was amazing!"

"Sounds like you're a Danvers to me," Lena says softly, her eyes catching Kara's and holding them. It's a long moment before Kara looks away, picks up her glass.

"There are times when I feel so...different. Apart, you know?" She glances quickly at Lena before dropping her eyes again. "But not on my birthday. Never then."

Propping herself on an elbow, one hand cradling her head, the other outstretched, tracing idle designs on the tablecloth, Lena speaks softly, her eyes downward. "I know what you mean. With Lex, I felt like part of a family, like I belonged. But once he...went away," she swallows, the words bitter on her tongue, "I was stuck with the Luthor name, but with each day I felt less and less like one. I went away to boarding school, and the longer I was there, the more isolated I felt."

"Until one day it finally dawned on me - I wasn't loved."

A hand, soft and unexpected, reaches out and comes to rest on top of hers where it sits on the table. Her breath catches in her throat like an animal snared, bucking and rebelling against its capture.

It's a struggle to keep her face neutral, and she knows she's partially failed when a pain, sharp and insistent, breaks through the fog in her mind.

She's bitten her lip.

With wings beating wildly against her ribcage, lungs tight with held breath, she slowly turns her hand over, Kara's fingers dragging across her skin in torturous time until her palm is skyward, open in invitation. When Kara's fingertips graze the center where the skin is sensitive, they curl into one another, settling comfortably together against the table, warm and reassuringly strong.

With a shuddering breath, she manages to continue speaking, but her eyes never leave their hands linked on the table as if nothing's changed. As if this is their normal.

She thinks Kara doesn't look away either.

"It took me a long time...too long, really, to realize that. My mother would sometimes show up to the Parents' Weekend they'd have each semester at school, and in public, she'd be the picture of a doting mother. But only so long as there were others around to witness it."

Kara's thumb rubs small circles against the side of her hand, traces a new orbit in her galaxy, and she shivers at the contact, feels the pull of the gravitational shift, impossible to resist.

"It was impressive how quickly the pretext dropped when no one was looking."

In her periphery she sees the waiter approaching. Kara must, too, since she pulls her hand away. Lena leaves hers in place, returning to tracing her fingers over the rough texture of the tablecloth beneath. Silence settles between them as their glasses are refilled, their plates removed.

The spot near her wrist burns.

Softly, Kara speaks up, resetting the conversation. "Quid pro quo. What was your favorite part of being at school?"

Sitting back in her chair, reluctantly pulling her hand in, Lena thinks for a moment before answering, "As awful as it sounds, the isolation forced me to sort of...figure myself out." Kara smiles softly across the way, and Lena explains, "I really came into my own. Lex was...growing away, and my mother was...well, my mother." Her eyebrows raise in emphasis.

"I was still known by my name, I was still the Luther girl, but I was just one of hundreds from such families. _Everyone_ had a name with history, with weight behind it, which meant that before long names became nothing. And it was so unbelievably freeing. I threw myself into my studies, fell in love with science."

"Are you _sure_ you're not a Danvers?" Kara asks, and Lena smiles warmly.

"Of course, my family was involved with science, but it wasn't something I really took a large interest in until I was at school. Most of our science teachers were men, but there was this one teacher we were all crazy in love with - Mrs. Gilbert. She taught all levels of chemistry, and she was the kind of teacher that was so ridiculously passionate about her subject that it was contagious. We couldn't help but fall in love with science as well."

"It's really nice that you had someone to inspire you, a good female role model. Especially in a field that's really more male-oriented."

"Bullshit," Lena responds automatically, and Kara jerks back in surprise.

Apologetic, she explains, "I mean women have always been in science, Kara. They've always been in the STEM fields. Marie Curie, Mary Somerville, Lise Meitner, Rosalind Franklin - modern science stands on their shoulders, even when people don't know their names. I mean their contributions are overlooked, overshadowed, absolutely, but they're undeniably there."

"Hey, you are preaching to the choir here," Kara says, her hands up in a placating manner.

"I do wish more young girls knew that, though, knew the great things they could do in these fields, had the encouragement to give them a try," Lena says through pursed lips.

"Why don't you be that role model?" Kara proposes, her voice growing stronger. "You're a woman - incredibly intelligent, beautiful, head of a multinational corporation responsible for some of the most innovative tech in the world. Who better to show them what they can do?"

Lena just stares at her. She can feel her jaw slacken.

"You know I'm right, Lena," Kara continues, and she sips on her water, smugness rolling off of her in waves.

After a moment, a smile plays at Lena's lips, and she drops her voice, responds teasingly, "You think I'm beautiful?"

"Wh-I, um-," she starts, choking on her water, a hint of panic creeping into her widening eyes. "I mean-obviously. Yes. I- of course. I have-eyes, Lena." When she sees Lena's shoulders begin to shake with barely contained laughter, she throws her head back against her chair. "C'mon! Leave me alone." Her ears are a delightful shade of pink, and Lena doesn't bother hiding her delight at the sight.

"I might have an idea."

"Yeah?" Kara leans forward expectantly, resting her chin in her hands, her elbows propped on the table.

"Yes, I do." And she does, the possibilities coalescing in her mind in rapid-fire form, a to-do list crystallizing in its entirety, full of bullet points and action items, the wheels spinning a million miles a minute.

"You going to let the rest of us in on that?" Kara prompts after a few beats of silence.

A smile crosses her lips, sly, flirtatious. With a shake of her head, Lena responds, "No, I don't think I will. I need to make some phone calls." When Kara pouts across at her, her lower lip jutting out adorably in an amateur attempt to sway her decision, Lena leans forward across the table, letting her eyes linger at the sight before lifting her gaze and whispering, "Patience, Kara Danvers."

When the fading pink on Kara's ears immediately reverses course, deepening to match the color of her jacket, Lena savors the sight, thrills at the way her heartbeat has quickened.

Reaching into her purse, she pulls out her wallet, but not before a protest reaches her ears. Not that it makes a difference, in the end. She waves off Kara's attempt to pay for her own meal with practiced ease.

"I needed this," she says once the waiter has disappeared with the cash and a generous tip. "We should do this more often." She keeps her voice carefully light, but the question in it is plain, and it leaves her feeling vulnerable.

Vulnerability isn't a shade she wears well, long ago growing accustomed to the weight of her armor, the sight of the brick and mortar walls she's constructed high above her head. The long shadows.

She needn't have worried. Kara smiles brightly across at her and says simply, "Absolutely."

Unlocking her phone, she navigates to her contacts screen and slides it across the table to a confused Kara. "Save me the trouble of coming all the way upstairs next time?" Kara enters her name and number with a shy smile, and when she's done, she pulls out her own phone, asks the same. Lena's grin is smug, incorrigible even, as she types her number into Kara's phone.

They walk the long blocks back to CatCo in companionable silence, and although the crowd has thinned some, leaving them able to move freely along the sidewalk, by some unspoken mutual agreement they stay close, occasionally bumping into one another, their shoulders grazing from time to time.

On occasion she catches glimpses of their reflections, momentary snapshots captured in polished steel and sparkling glass, flecks of amber, shimmering and seraphic amidst waves of onyx.

About halfway back, they spy a few people stopped together up ahead, their attention on a low wall in the deepening shadow of one of the dozens of banks along this stretch of downtown. Lena and Kara don't slow their step, but as they pass, they, too, find their heads turning, curious to see what the fuss is about.

It takes less than a second for Lena to wish they hadn't.

The symbol is relatively small, no more than a foot and half across, max. At its center is an alien, or at least that's what she assumes it's supposed to be - the caricature is what one might find in a 1950's comic, all gangly limbs and large eyes, rendered in a vivid shade of acid green. It's bound in a circle of red, a line slashed through the middle in a message even a child could understand. The paint is fresh, and it shines dully in the dappled midday light.

But the artist, if they can be called that, had a heavy hand, the red sprayed on much too thickly. Pulled by gravity, the excess paint continues to roll down the wall, leaving deep red streaks in its wake like blood shed in an opening skirmish.

Neither of them speak. Lena clenches her jaw, swallows harshly, the city turning to ash on her tongue. When the crowd forces her closer to Kara, their hands bumping, she realizes the journalist's hands are bunched into fists at her side. Chancing a quick glance, she sees the line on her forehead, the flare of her nostrils.

The silence feels poisoned, the air dark and acrid. It weighs heavily on her shoulders and burns in her nostrils.

Risking another glance at Kara, she feels the pull of gravity. It's gentle but insistent, and before she can change her mind, before she can rationalize it away, she takes a quick breath and reaches out, lets her hand fall atop Kara's where she still holds it bunched at her side. The effect is almost instantaneous. Kara's fingers begin to loosen, uncurling from a fist inch by inch, and when they're relaxed, hanging loosely once more against her thigh, Lena squeezes briefly, trying to telegraph a silent _it's OK_ before releasing her hand completely.

They walk the remaining blocks without speaking, but with each step the air loses some of its bitterness, the shadows lessen, beaten back by the sun. More than once she steals a glance to make sure the crease between Kara's eyes hasn't returned, and with each confirmation she feels her own muscles relax, the strain in her lungs ease.

When they slow their steps, come to a hesitant stop outside of Kara's building, it's Lena who leans in first, wrapping her arms around Kara's waist, crossing tentatively on her back. Only this time Kara doesn't freeze. Warm arms wind around Lena's shoulders, strong but gentle, and a breath brushes faintly across her neck. A bouquet of citrus tickles her nose, orange or lemon she's not sure, the scent too light, but it's the smell of summer, sweet and intoxicating.

She shivers in spite of the sun beaming down from overhead.

One. Two. Three seconds. The embrace doesn't last longer than that, not really, but for a moment time stands still, the world around them slows, stops.

With reluctance she pulls away, her cheek sliding slowly across Kara's, smooth, soft. It scorches where they touch.

"Have a good afternoon, Ms. Danvers," she says, her eyes blinking languidly in the early afternoon sun.

Kara's voice is soft, barely above a whisper. "You, too." Her eyes are still half-closed when Lena turns and walks away.

She drifts back to L-Corp on the breeze, the sun warm against her back. There's no armor pushing down upon her shoulders, no chainmail scratching at her skin, and even the shadows darkening her path are fleeting, shrinking back into the walls as she passes.

She feels lighter than she has any right to be.

* * *

Looking at her watch impatiently once more, Lena purses her lips, does her damnedest to will the elevator to just...speed up already. She's running late enough as it is.

It's her own fault, really, a fact that seems to irritate her even more, and she huffs in impotent frustration while the bright red numbers above the metal doors mark her slow descent through the building. After another lunch with Kara, her second in as many days, she stopped off at the lab, intending to check in quickly with the R&D team about some issues they've been having with one of their latest projects.

"Issues" might be a bit of an understatement. "Minor explosions" is a bit more accurate, and the mandatory fire evacuation this morning really didn't help their case. So, when a department lets a giant stack of company money go up in smoke repeatedly, figuratively speaking, of course, a check-in is not uncalled for.

What should have been a short meeting turned into an entire afternoon. It took nearly an hour alone for her to ferret out the mathematical error in her lead tech's chemical equation, the group of them standing around the whiteboard, marker smudges marring their hands. They'd given up on searching for the eraser early on.

And once she'd found the error, well, she couldn't very well just leave, could she? What sort of example would that have set? Adorned in a white lab coat, rubber gloves, and super fashionable goggles, she watched with rapt attention as the team put her tweaked equation to the test. When no fires erupted, no alarms went off, the looks they gave her, the unchecked respect in their eyes - it was worth every minute of her time.

 _I should do this more often. Leave the budgets and teleconferences and executive office behind from time to time, get back to the science._

She looks at her watch once more, the doors sliding open ahead of her, and notes with grim determination that she has exactly twenty minutes to make it across town in late afternoon traffic. Veering sharply to the right, she makes a beeline for the entrance, her movements precise, efficient, like a well-oiled machine.

After a week of repairs, the caution tape and construction equipment are gone, and the lobby is once again pristine, all signs of last week's attack vanished without a trace.

When she pushes through the glass doors and steps outside, she wishes she could say the same thing about the rest of her life. A handful of protesters are gathered near the street, again, huddled up near a barricade the NCPD erected the other day when they first showed up, handmade signs and posters held aloft, touting such sentiments as "Aliens Are People, Too!"

 _For christ's sake, this can't be my life_. She sighs but doesn't break her stride, her face carefully composed as she makes her way through no-man's land. They've been peaceful at least, and the guards working the lobby and the door haven't had any real issues so far. If they're here tomorrow, perhaps she'll invite them in for a chat, plead her case, if need be. But not now. There's no time.

Rushing down the steps, her heels ring soundly against the hard surface with the rhythmic precision of a metronome. Up ahead her car idles at the curb, and her driver, Daniel, stands near the passenger door, waiting for her arrival, his eyes carefully surveying the protesters nearby. Just in case.

She has just enough time to register the blur, the streak of colors that interrupt her line of sight before Supergirl appears a few steps below her, the look on her face clearly indicating _we need to talk_. The suddenness startles Lena, and her feet fall out of step with a stuttering motion.

"Miss Luthor, I apologize-"

Recovering quickly, Lena sighs, "Hi. Listen, I"m sorry, can you make it quick? I'm running late for a very important meeting."

Supergirl turns, and they descend the rest of the steps together while the Girl of Steel delivers her message. "The DEO is tracking a number of unspecified threats against various targets here in National City." She pauses before adding, "Your name is on the list."

For the second time Lena's steps falter, slow. She allows herself a moment, just one, to close her eyes. "Dammit."

While taking another moment to survey the area, scrutinizing the straggling protesters, the passing cars, scouring the locale for threats, Supergirl continues to speak. "As you know, after your mother's arraignment yesterday the judge ordered her held without bond, but we think she's found a way to communicate with her associates on the outside. Maybe through her lawyer, maybe through a guard-" she sighs heavily, "-we don't know yet."

Lena cocks her head at the frustration in the tone, marvels at it.

Her mother's arraignment was the leading story on last night's news. Or, more specifically, the barely avoided riot that nearly broke out in the courtroom during the proceedings, supporters and detractors alike shouting from the seats, the bailiffs too outnumbered to quieten and remove them all before things unraveled.

And through it all her mother sat, as cold and unmoving as marble.

"But it would appear that although the public is still in the dark, information regarding your role in her failure and capture has found its way to her...circle."

When her jaw clenches, again and again, she can feel the tightness pull in her cheeks, and Supergirl's eyes track the movement with startling focus.

The protesters have fallen quiet around them, watching the scene with interest even though they are too far back to hear the content of the conversation.

"I just wanted to let you know. You have security, right?"

A nod, crisp and curt.

"Use them. Maybe-" she starts, ducks her head a little as she mutters, "-maybe take it easy on the walks alone through downtown for awhile."

It's a moment before Lena finds her words, but when she does, they're pure steel, cold and sharp and dripping with danger. "You've been watching me?"

"No! I, um, I have my sources." The words are rushed, and she continues quickly, the rest tumbling out haphazardly. "Look, just be careful. Please? We don't know how much bigger the organization was or how deep their resources go. Your mother has contacts, Ms. Luthor, and it looks like she aims to use them."

"My mother doesn't scare me."

Supergirl offers her a tentative smile in return. "I get the impression not much does. But still. Be careful. We'll continue to try and work the investigation from our end."

With a nod, Lena says, "I'll consider it." Looking down at her watch, she sighs heavily, "Look I really do need to go. I'm late for a meeting."

"I could give you a lift…?"

The peal of laughter that escapes from Lena's lips is unexpected, and it takes them both by surprise. "Thanks, but, I'm not really fond of flying. Think I'll take my chances on the ground."

With a chuckle, Supergirl nods. "Alright, but I promise, I'm _really_ good at it."

"Noted." A smirk, slow and mischievous slides along Lena's face until, with a quick nod, she turns and climbs into her waiting car. The door closes behind her with finality. Outside her window, Supergirl remains still, her eyes trained on Lena's door until Daniel takes his place in the driver's seat. Stepping back, giving the area another quick once-over, Supergirl takes her leave, vanishing into the afternoon sky as quickly as she had arrived.

As downtown National City slides by her window, the people, the glass and steel, the powerhouses of business towering far above the streets, it all mixes and blurs in a swirl of color, suddenly nauseating. She pulls her eyes away, reaches into her purse for her phone.

Finding her last text, she worries at her bottom lip, types out a message and hits send after reading it back a few times.

 _Care to make it 3 for 3? Lunch at my office tomorrow?_

A smile, soft and hopeful, pulls at the corner of her mouth, and her hand reaches up to touch her lips, to feel her face, so unused to the way this feels. Unaccustomed to dropping her mask at the thought of something so simple.

Thoughtful eyes track the movement in the rearview mirror before Daniel refocuses on the road ahead, a small grin to match his employer's as he hits the blinker, turns to take them uptown.


	5. Chapter 5

_Current Day_

They don't talk.

Not after the whispered "thank you" Lena offers when she slides into the passenger seat of Maggie's squad car, the leather cool against her back. Lodged between the side panel and the tower of gear encroaching from the center console, she feels small, her limbs folded in upon themselves in understated efficiency, her chin dropped quietly to her chest.

To be honest, even if she had just climbed into a limousine, awash in a sea of empty space and luxurious comfort, she suspects her posture would be no different than it is now. Perhaps it's hardwired into the human genome, this instinct to become compact, to condense when faced with the prospect of trauma. Any good boxer knows the routine - head lowered, arms tucked tightly to the center to protect the organs, shoulders rounded and guard up, always prepared to deflect incoming blows. Or soldiers, in the way they crouch in a gunfight, make themselves a smaller target, harder for their enemies to hit.

Cocooned in the overcrowded front seat of an NCPD cruiser, her body cradled in cheap leather, she can feel herself taking up a defensive stance, making herself small, a desperate attempt to protect her vital organs from the rain of blows falling from the sky tonight. Preparing for the worst.

She sits, looking...nowhere, her knuckles white where she holds her phone in a vice grip in her lap.

As the overhead light fades, the interior sinks into imperfect darkness, the only light the soft glow of the in-dash console. Their faces glow in the cool blue corona, but with each inch further the blue deepens to midnight, dark and unknowable.

She can feel Maggie's eyes on her, studying, analyzing.

Lena can only imagine what she must see - the dried tracks marring her cheeks, the spot of blood bruised and bright on her lip where she bit too hard. The way she recedes into the shadows to cover how much her body trembles.

The detective's gaze is intense, and in spite of the darkness she feels like she's been laid bare on an examining table beneath scores of lights, hot and blinding, her body stripped, ready to be studied and catalogued and scrutinized by untold numbers.

She hates it.

She wears vulnerability with the discomfort of a new pair of shoes. It pinches, bites into her skin, tears at her flesh and leaves her blistered and aching. Only a few people have ever seen beneath the veneer, beneath the carefully constructed and maintained persona. That she's allowed herself to be so transparent now grates under her skin like sandpaper, and she finds herself squirming and cursing under the continued examination.

After a long moment, however, when Lena finally looks up into Maggie's face, turned towards her and bathed in crystalline blue, the eyes that meet hers are warm and sympathetic in a way she hadn't expected, in a way her life hasn't prepared her to be. The detective's lips pull into a melancholy half grin, the corners of her eyes crinkling slightly with the movement, and with an understanding nod of the head, Maggie throws the car into reverse, executing a three point turn with practiced ease in the middle of Parker St., turning them away from the park, away from the sea of red taillights still idling angrily a block behind them.

The movement is comforting, and the vice around her heart eases its grip ever so slightly.

She's not sure why Maggie doesn't flip on her siren, if it's a policy decision or a personal one. Whatever the reason, she's grateful. Here so close to the crash site - _she shudders when the phrase crosses her mind so offhandedly_ \- the shrill siren song echoes endlessly off the buildings, growing in number and volume until the air practically vibrates at its frenzied pitch. It's inescapable.

Each cry is a needle burrowing under her skin, boring into her veins and scratching its way through her limbs until it punctures her heart with piercing finality.

Each scream leaves her weak and dizzy, the pain in her chest sharpening, her heart flayed a thousand times over.

But it's not as if Maggie needs sirens to get around traffic. The flow headed away from the scene is light in the early evening hours, and Maggie whips the squad car around the stragglers without hesitation, not even remotely bothered by the numbers flashing on her speedometer.

There are a few moments, early on, when Lena catches movement out of the corner of her eye, feels that studied glance on her face again, bright like a spotlight. She shifts uncomfortably, and in her periphery Maggie opens her mouth as if to speak, only to close it again after a second.

Instead of breaking their unspoken agreement, instead of asking one of the dozens of questions sitting precariously on the tip of her tongue, Maggie remains silent, her leg stiffening slightly in the driver's seat. The engine growls threateningly, and Lena falls further into the cool leather at her back as Maggie's feet fall heavy on the pedal.

They don't talk.

But the car is filled with voices all the same. As the sirens fade to nothing with each mile behind them, the constant babble of the police band radio mounted into the center console becomes more apparent, an unending stream of squawks and police codes, barked out in such rapid succession it may as well be an alien language. There's talk of clean-up, talk of crowd control. Reports of a drunk driver northbound on Taylor in a silver Impala; the accompanying response of a patrol unit en route.

It washes over her like white noise. The sounds reach her ears, vibrate relentlessly against her eardrums, but the signal is interrupted on the other side, the call dropped. She hears, but she doesn't listen.

Watching the dizzying scenery outside, the darkened businesses, the blaring neon of fast food joints, the sophisticated ambience of upscale restaurants, all of it combines into a sickening mix of dark and light, dead and alive, and Lena finds her eyes closing in response, her head leaned against the window, the hum of the road and the occasional soft static of the radio soothing her frayed nerves.

When their speed begins to drop and the car turns, then turns again, Lena stirs to find Maggie directing them through a warren of one-way streets. _We must be close_. Eyeing a street sign as they pass through another intersection, she feels a laugh, acidic and humorless bubbling up in her throat, and she bites her lip once more to keep it in check.

As it turns out, their destination is only five miles from L-Corp.

An hour wasted frantically running from one end of town to another only to find that Kara was here all along.

 _Five fucking miles_.

"Here we are," Maggie says quietly, nodding her head toward the towering building outside Lena's window, a hint of tension in her voice that was absent before.

The place is nothing to look at, all glass and steel and utterly invisible, another in National City's long line of unimaginative skyscrapers. Lena's sure she's driven by here dozens of times, never sparing the building a second glance.

Continuing past the front, they drive another couple hundred yards further until the sidewalk opens up, and Maggie turns the squad car down a narrow drive angling steeply downward, the route turning once more until dead-ending at a security checkpoint beneath the building. Unlike most underground parking lots, in addition to the standard electronic arm to block the way, the entrance to this one is guarded by two men, automatic weapons hung loosely by their sides.

A line of spikes, teeth gleaming and hungry and waiting, dots the pavement ahead, a promise of danger.

Rolling down her window, Maggie hands her NCPD badge to the closest guard along with another Lena doesn't recognize, the movements easy and familiar, as if she's done this hundreds of times. Lena's eyes track the second guard as he crosses in front of the car, his movements casual, his rifle held loosely against his chest. But the ease is too practiced, too studied.

It's a feint.

When he comes to a halt a few feet from the passenger door, his torso is in her line of sight, and glancing over, she sees his finger placed deliberately to the side of the trigger, tapping out an unhurried rhythm against the trigger guard.

Waiting. Watching. _Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap._ It's almost hypnotic.

She doesn't hear her name being called, doesn't hear the squeak of boots or rustle of fabric as the first guard bends to the driver's window, addresses her again.

She doesn't hear anything.

 _Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap._

When a hand touches her arm tentatively, fingers cool against her skin, she startles, and looking back, she finds two sets of eyes fastened on hers, expectant.

"He needs your ID."

"Oh, I…" Her eyes drop automatically, searching for her purse. Only it's not there. Dread fills her belly like lead. Her purse is in her office, forgotten in her haste.

With a thick swallow, she says, "I...I don't have my ID on me." A vein of panic pounds in her head, and she continues, "I'm...I'm Lena Luthor."

"I know who you are, ma'am." His voice is toneless, robotic. He looks at Detective Sawyer, jaws clenching and releasing in quick succession as if chewing on something tough, as if weighing a choice he'd rather not have to make. Looking between the two of them once more, the lauded NCPD Detective and the woman with 'The Name," he nods curtly, a decision made. Both men step back from the vehicle, and the first reaches around to his desk, pushes a button.

She expects sirens. Expects a swarm of officers, guns at the ready. Her mind spirals uncontrollably at the possibilities, and her heart beats wildly.

Instead, a mechanical hum sounds, and the arm blocking their path retracts, the spikes disappearing into the floor to wait for their next meal. Their way is open.

She stares, lips parted, her breath burning sharply in her lungs.

Maggie wastes no time. Her foot hits the gas heavily, and the resulting growl echoes menacingly in the concrete confines of the parking garage. The car prowls forward, sleek and formidable, and after circling the lot, they pull into a spot on the far end, nestled amidst a veritable pack of identical vehicles, all black and tinted and easily identifiable at a mile away as being government issued.

Overhead the sodium arc lights hum softly, dotting the darkened floor with rings of amber. Lena's heels crack like lightning as they cross to the elevator, bathed in yellow one moment, doused in shadow the next, a storm playing out across her features. At the elevator, Maggie waves her pass once more, and the doors slide open without argument.

Still, they don't talk.

The elevator rises silently into the building, their progress marked only by the numbers flashing in green above the doors. Lena stands stock-still next to Maggie, uncomfortable in the overly bright lights of the cramped car, unable to tear her gaze away from the flat metallic door in front of her, from the dull reflection staring back at her.

This... _not Lena_ is blurred, her edges indistinct, distorted in a way she's never been allowed, and for a moment she forgets they're separate, loses the line between them. She imagines the _not Lena_ is her, all splintered chaos and porcelain fog, and the one standing in the too-bright lights of the elevator in immaculate Saint Laurent heels and with her carefully composed face is actually her dull reflection, a shade.

The Lenas blink in unison.

When the doors slide open, she stares into the cool brown eyes of another guard, as uniform of build and dress as the vehicles in the garage below. Another carbon copy, a gun slung comfortably around his neck, his finger resting against the trigger guard in a disturbing deja vu that leaves Lena off-kilter.

"Detective. Ma'am. You'll need to wait here." His eyes slide to Lena before moving away. "This one doesn't have clearance. An agent will be down to escort you shortly."

"Are you serious right now?" Maggie huffs incredulously, her hands moving to her hips, her face screwed up in a grimace.

"An agent will be down to escort you shortly," the guard repeats, turning away just in time to miss the detective's exaggerated eye roll.

And so they both stand, sullen, arms crossed, mirroring each other.

It's unclear how much time passes. Could be two minutes, could be two hours. Since crossing onto the property everything has felt surreal, like the rules have been suspended, the laws of time and space deemed immaterial. A liminal space camouflaged with fluorescent lighting and tile floors.

The guard looks at her askance, standing at rest nearby. The air fills with the clicks and clatters of a keyboard, the noise filtering out from a nearby office.

 _Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap._

Rinse. Repeat.

"Agent Schott." Lena's head whips up at the name. Winn staggers toward them, his eyes wild, his steps uneven.

He doesn't hold their gazes. He dodges the questions in their eyes, ignores the words on their tongues.

"I'll vouch for her. What do I need to sign?"

The great governmental machine lurches slowly forward at the words, bureaucracy resurrected at the promise of paperwork. A form slides beneath her eyes, and she puts pen to paper in a flurry of movement faster than she thought herself capable. And then another. And another. God help her she has no idea what she's signing. They could slide anything in front of her right now, and she'd sign it as long as Kara was on the other end.

A flash, white and blinding - they take her photograph, and in a matter of seconds, she has a warm plastic badge slung around her neck. She doesn't look. It doesn't matter, the woman in the picture isn't her.

When the formalities are complete, the three of them clear the security checkpoint and enter another elevator at the far end of the main lobby, one that Winn activates with his own keycard.

"Thank you," she squeaks, turning to him. Clearing her throat, she tries again, willing the nerves to settle, willing her voice to cooperate. "For vouching for me. Thank you."

He nods, and when he looks up, she notes the redness in his eyes, the scratchiness in his voice as he responds, "She trusts you. Which means I do, too." He looks away again, blinks rapidly. His shoulders sink, and she finds she can't stand to watch him fold in upon himself.

The elevator doors open to a wall of glass, an emblem as large as a man etched onto its face with the words "The Department of Extra-normal Operations" circling around it in military precision.

"Welcome to the DEO," Winn mutters, the words souring in the heavy air between them, the greeting turned eulogy in the space of a few feet.

The corridors he leads them down are labyrinthine, lefts and rights and lefts again, a disorienting combination that leaves Lena feeling once more that she's stepped into a world where the laws of nature are held in suspense.

The further they go, the dizzier she becomes, her breath held burning in her lungs. The mask she wears so firmly in place is cracked, its fissures spreading to the rest of her body. She can feel the fractures like cuts along her limbs, the spiderwebs radiating over her ribs. With each step, her heart hammers harder in her chest, and she rattles at the seams, a million pieces threatening to shatter. She keeps her breaths shallow, keeps her energy focused on staying whole.

It's the only way she'll survive.

Every once in awhile Maggie turns to her, as if to check in and make sure she's still standing. Her eyes are sympathetic and warm, Lena's false bravado transparent. Even Winn, with his haunted red eyes and stuttering step, looks at her as if she's made of porcelain, as if he sees the cracks.

She wants to scream, wants to ball her hands into fists and let loose the wild things with claws lurking in her lungs.

But she doesn't, afraid her voice will shatter her tenuous hold.

Instead, she carries herself tall as if her spine is solid steel. She pulls her shoulders back and pushes her chin into the air.

Her eyes are dry.

The group rounds another corner, identical to the last in every way except one - this one holds Alex Danvers, who stands outside a doorway talking animatedly with a man. He turns, and Lena feels the flash of recognition, bright and blinding. He was there alongside Supergirl the night her mother was arrested. And although Supergirl explained it once upon a time, a bolt of fear snakes through her remembering the man who wears this face alongside a metal one, the man who attacked her that same night at L-Corp.

Her steps falter, once, twice, but she swallows tightly and pulls her chin higher, regaining her rhythm and continuing forward.

She can pinpoint the moment Alex sees Maggie, though. The woman's eyes are frenzied, wild as she speaks with the director, but when they find Maggie, they blink lazily, relax noticeably. The agent's entire posture sinks and calms as she moves to close the distance between them wordlessly.

Lena can pinpoint, too, the moment Alex sees her as well, when her presence, her identity pierces the fog clouding the agent's vision, and alarm registers shrill and insistent across her face. "Maggie, she can't be here!"

"She already knew, Danvers," Maggie responds, her hands held out to placate as Alex reaches their group.

"What-"

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you, they're just glasses," she sighs, but Alex ignores the response.

"There's protocol, Maggie! And Kar-"

"Alex," Maggie says, cutting her off with a voice that brooks no argument. Alex stops, her eyes settling, and Maggie strokes a hand down her girlfriend's cheek, soft and soothing. "You're not the only one who loves her."

Lena doesn't breathe. Doesn't dare.

Leaning into Maggie's palm against her cheek, Alex turns her eyes on Lena, stares with a silent intensity, and she feels the fissures along her limbs jostle against one another, their jagged edges ripping and tearing. And yet she stands tall, stands still, returns the stare with a confidence she doesn't feel.

The director lingers in the doorway ahead, and to her side, Winn tries to subtly wipe the moisture from his eyes.

And still, she doesn't breathe.

Without turning her head, without breaking eye contact, Alex raises her voice, "Hey, Jackson!"

"Yes, ma'am?" A young agent emerges from a nearby room, alert and awaiting orders.

"Could you get me a non-disclosure agreement and the paperwork for a permanent pass, please?"

"Of course, ma'am."

Maggie pulls Alex's attention back to her, pulls her down and wraps her in an embrace, and Alex sinks into it, her eyes closing heavily, her shoulders shaking with long shuddering breaths, momentarily relieved of the weight of the world. It's a private moment, and Lena looks away, unwilling to intrude.

A breath, deep and audible, and Alex untangles herself, steps closer to Lena.

She notices Maggie and Alex's fingers are still intertwined, and Alex's knuckles are white, her grip firm where she holds onto her girlfriend like an anchor, desperate for calm in a stormy sea.

"So, Ms. Luthor-"

"Lena. Please. Just...just Lena."

A quick nod. "Lena. Are you sure you want to...to see? It's…"

Alex's words trail off with a shudder, and she's unable to complete the thought. Her eyes well with unshed tears.

That terrifies Lena most of all.

She nods her head and closes her eyes, takes a shuddering breath. Her lungs rattle as if a piece of her has broken off somewhere, and each breath labors and burns as it traces angry red lines inside.

Imagining herself walking into a hostile boardroom, she tries once more to take control, to hold her fragile shards together with nothing more than sheer will. What she wouldn't give to take up her armor once more, to feel the weight heavy against her shoulders, to feel the chain mail digging uncomfortably into her skin. Because this...vulnerability is a thousand fresh cuts open to the air, excruciating and unending, a torture she doesn't think she has the strength to endure.

With feigned bravado, she follows. Her chin trembles where she holds it high.

The director, J'onn, she hears someone say, leads them into the room as a group. Alex is first, followed immediately by Maggie, their hands joined tightly.

"Oh, Danvers…"

Winn follows next, and she enters the room at his back.

There's a whirr of motors, electronic beeps sounding with regularity, their steady noise eerily soothing in the close confines of the room. But they recede to nothing. Mere white noise. The room somehow manages to capture the antiseptic smell of a hospital, the cloying scent burning in her nostrils, making the bile rise unbidden in her throat.

Winn and Alex and Maggie shuffle to either side of the entrance, and her field of vision clears.

 _Kara_.

Against the far wall on a table beneath an array of lamps, their lights bright yellow and blisteringly warm, Kara lies unmoving. Her suit is singed, charred, and there's blood... _so much blood._

They've spread her hair out behind her head, but it's no longer golden, darkened as it is with soot, matted with blood.

Supergirl lies broken, as small as a bird perched alone there on the table.

The steel in Lena's spine snaps. Her scream catches like knives in her throat. The seams along her arms fracture and give way, while the mask perched precariously on her face splinters and crumbles.

She shatters, the pieces of her falling to the floor like dust.

She doesn't talk. She can't.

Kara lies lifeless before her, sparkling like an emerald in the light, terrible and beautiful.


	6. Chapter 6

_Six Weeks Ago_

"Well, Ms. Luthor, I think we've got what we need. I can't thank you enough for making time to come down here and go through this with me today." The chair squeaks in protest as District Attorney Leung pushes away from her desk and rises to her feet, cutting an imposing figure behind the solid mahogany, every bit as solemn and stately as one would imagine. "I know you are an incredibly busy woman, but you're doing the whole city a service here." Leung punctuates her words with a nod of her head before moving to round the edge of her desk, an unmistakeable sign the meeting has reached its conclusion.

Relief begins to trickle into her veins as Lena Luthor climbs from the depths of her sumptuous chair, subtly straightening her skirt as she stands. The DA's grip is cool and firm when she reaches out to shake her hand, each shake bearing the finality of a bell toll, and the dread coiled tightly in her belly eases inch by inch.

"Of course, I'm happy to help in any way that I can." The smile pulls at the corner of her mouth, stretches into her cheeks in all the right ways, but it fails to reach her eyes. It's the practiced response of the CEO, the winsome visage paraded about at public relations events, all sparkling teeth and perfect lipstick, a familiar facade obscuring the turmoil beneath.

That's not to say her statement is anything but genuine, however. When the District Attorney's office had called yesterday hoping to schedule a time for her deposition, she'd wasted no time firing off a string of apologetic emails and phone calls, clearing a few hours in her schedule today to visit the courthouse in person. If she's being honest, she initially expected to meet with an Assistant DA or one of their army of lower level staffers. Instead, when she had presented herself a couple of hours ago at the desk and made the appropriate introductions it was as if she'd uttered the top secret password - the ornately carved wooden door set far back into the interior of the room had opened as if on cue, and she found herself ushered into the DA's private office without further ado.

"As I mentioned before, you have nothing to worry about from my office. We're keeping your role in this as quiet as possible for now, taking all of the necessary precautions that are standard for such a high-profile case." The DA places a cool hand on her arm in emphasis, in support, but it does little to settle her frayed nerves. They itch and ache just beneath the surface, a hundred thousand live wires dancing along her skin. If Leung notices the infinitesimal tremble, she hides it well. "Your deposition will be treated with the strictest confidentiality, and only a limited number of staff will know it exists. You're our star witness, Ms. Luthor. We need you."

The smile remains plastered to her face. Her cheeks ache with the strain. But bile rises in her throat, sharp and hot, and she swallows harshly, wills her body to cooperate for just a little longer.

The DA escorts her to the threshold of her quiet office, and when the heavy wooden door swings open in a measured clip, the supportive hand drops unceremoniously from her arm, and she's left to navigate through the outer offices alone, adrift in an unfamiliar landscape.

Austere metal desks and filing cabinets are crammed every which way, every scrap of floor space claimed in one way or another. A phone rings, shrill and insistent, somewhere to her left, and the metallic slam of a filing cabinet closing behind her startles her into motion, picking her way carefully through the office, anxiety prickling along her neck. Snippets of conversations swirl around her in counterpoint, and beneath it all beats the steady staccato of fingers dancing over keyboards in a modern symphony.

She doesn't breathe until she pulls on the metal door knob, the secretary buzzing her through the door without fanfare. In sharp contrast to the office, the rotunda is bright, open in a way that soothes her nerves where they lay open, exposed, that wipes the beads of sweat from her brow with a cool, even hand.

Pulling the door closed with a final _click_ behind her, when she turns her eyes are drawn irrevocably to the statue given pride of place in the center of the courthouse, the bronze radiant in the midday sun streaming in through the windows above. From her angle the figure is in profile, half of its features hidden from view. Her feet move of their own accord, pulled forward by the sight, and although she feels her heels striking the opulent tile, the impact vibrating through her calves, the sound is swallowed whole in the cavernous space.

It's a woman, clad in a mix of armor and robes, scales held aloft in her left hand. _Justice._ A blindfold winds tightly around her eyes, blinding her to status or name or money or any of the myriad classifications people like to ascribe to one another. All irrelevant. Her left leg is forward, planted solidly, her muscles bared, the artist showing particular skill in the definition of the sinews, the clear depiction of the power she holds. The conviction she carries in her fiber.

But as she moves around front, Lena sees what was hidden from view before - a sword held at the ready, its edge sharp with promise, shining brightly in the opalescent sun where it filters down through the domed skylight high above. Her eyes track upward, her head falling back as she gazes, past towering Corinthian columns, their marbled contours solid and unmoving. Past the second and third floors, their passages open to view, where groups of people move along - men and women in business suits, average citizens in all manner of attire, parading past the ornately carved balustrades, where the gilded woodwork glows warmly. And beyond it all, high above the comings and goings, the machinations of mankind, is a dome of translucent glass.

With the strong midday sun shining overhead, a sparkling column of light filters down from the ceiling, its rays catching the rails, reflecting and reverberating in the opulent space, reaching down to the very center of the courthouse, bathing the bronze statue in ethereal light, Justice ordained by the heavens themselves.

 _Clank. Clank clank clank._

It starts off softly, a jingle, a susurrant whisper, barely audible amongst the echoed conversations ricocheting off the walls around her. But the noise builds and crescendos until it's unavoidable, and Lena snaps out of her reverie, turning away from the statue to see a line of inmates, their belly chains clanking and rubbing in disjointed rhythm. Men of all descriptions, some fresh-faced and terrified, others hardened, indifferent, all shackled and shuffling, presumably to await their time before the judge.

Two guards escort the inmates, and the one bringing up the rear has a gloved hand placed securely above the elbow of the last man in their sad march, the black leather a stark contrast to the institutional white of the National City Detention Center jumpsuit. Where the guard's uniform sleeve rides up, the tip of a tattoo becomes barely visible, dark against his skin. When Lena looks up, she finds the guard watching her, his eyes a piercing gray.

It's unsettling.

She returns his stare with one of her own, her gaze unblinking, unwilling to give ground, and after a moment he passes her by, the train of inmates slowly disappearing from sight around the corner.

Even still, her skin crawls.

Turning, she angles herself toward the exit and begins to move, jostling along through the crowd, their voices echoing along the hard surfaces, conversations drifting down from the floors above. Attorneys in sharp suits stand huddled together, their laughter sharp, out of place, while people sit anxiously on the benches around the exterior, their legs jangling with unspent anxiety.

They watch her as she passes, and by their frank stares, their narrowed eyes, she knows they recognize her. Her chin tilts up, her jaw steels, and she passes them by without a second glance, walking swiftly past the metal detectors and into the shadowed entrance foyer, crossing swiftly through the oblong panels of light cast by the transom windows nestled atop the ornate arch door.

The early afternoon sun is bright overhead, and it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. When she sees her car waiting at the curb, Daniel standing watch, relief floods into her veins, quick and cool.

"Everything alright, ma'am?" he asks as she nears the street, holding the car door open.

Ducking her head, she slides smoothly onto the back seat, the leather refreshingly familiar against her back. "As good as can be expected, all things considered," she mutters, her voice subdued. A knowing nod of the head, he closes the door behind her before making his way around the bumper to the driver's side.

"Office?" He asks the question without looking once he's buckled into his own seat, his attention instead focused on the stream of traffic outside his door, gauging the gaps, waiting for his chance to pull away from the curb.

Lena checks the watch on her wrist before sighing, "I suppose I must." His eyes flicker briefly to the rearview mirror before returning to the road. The resignation is plain in her voice, and it annoys her to hear it, annoys her that she allows it to be so transparent.

But it doesn't surprise her. Not in the least. The deposition took up her entire midday, right through lunch. Today's the first time she's missed a work day lunch date with Kara since they started, what...a week ago now?

Reaching for her phone, she opens her calendar, noting the meeting with the board in...Christ, forty minutes. There'll be no time to eat today at all, it seems. A sigh passes her lips, carrying the weariness of an ancient on its wings. The loneliness of one, too.

Distracting herself with email and missed calls, seeing how the world kept spinning while she stood still, she misses the warm eyes watching her in the rearview mirror, misses the minute nod of his head as Daniel makes a quick decision, bypassing the intended turn lane and setting them on an alternate route back to the office.

When she glances up again, casts her eyes to the city outside the car, she's surprised to see the imposing facade of Catco coming into view, its towering heights looming large over the busy city street.

 _Kara's in there. Probably stewing about something Snapper said. Or did. Or even something she only thinks he said or did._ In her mind, she can see the crease forming in the middle of Kara's forehead, the one she gets when she's annoyed or worried, when the world isn't fully cooperating with how she thinks it should be, like it's the physical manifestation of her stubborn streak.

As the building passes by, in the back seat of her car Lena's face relaxes, the scowl she wasn't even aware she was wearing fading into nothing, the stress bunching in her shoulders, wrapped tightly in her belly slowly loosening its grip, retracting its claws one by one.

The effect is instantaneous, and Lena marvels at it. The weight of the morning is gone, held suspended, at least for the moment, and in its place is a flutter she dares not analyze, a headiness she doesn't name.

In the front seat, Daniel cracks a smile and moves his eyes back to the road.

When the elevator doors open onto the top floor of L-Corp, she exits into a veritable hive of activity, an easy smile gracing her features and a warm greeting for the employees she passes on her way to her office, including Trey, who passes her with an empty coffee mug in hand and a glazed look in his eyes, clearly in need of a jolt to get him through the afternoon.

Jess sits outside her office with an unsettling smile on her face. "Ms. Luthor, I've left your messages on your desk as usual."

"Thank you, Jess," Lena responds, her eyes narrowing, trying to divine the reason for the Mona Lisa smile on her assistant's face. With a shake of the head, she moves on, opening the door and shucking her coat, hanging it on the rack nearby. Walking toward her desk, however, her pace falters, and her brow wrinkles in confusion. There's something piled in the center. _That definitely wasn't here when I left…_

As she narrows the distance, however, her features change, and her eyes crinkle at the corners in unabashed amusement. A plastic take-out container from one of her favorite restaurants sits squarely in front of her chair, a variety of beautifully made sashimi and sushi on display within. A note sits next to the box, plain and unadorned.

" _I finally got to buy you lunch. Don't work too hard. - Kara"_

The handwriting belongs to Jess, clearly Kara's woman on the inside. Laughter erupts from her lips, echoes off the walls in a tinkling cascade, shimmering and sparkling along the surfaces of the room, a note of audible sunshine.

This...thoughtfulness isn't something she's used to, isn't something her life has conditioned her to expect or experience. The warmth suffusing her veins, circulating through her system, touching every part of her, every cell, every molecule - it's a heady feeling, and she quickly pulls out her chair, seats herself indecorously for fear of losing her balance.

Pulling out her phone, she types out a text, hitting send before she can second guess her choice of words.

" _Kara, I could kiss you - you're a LIFESAVER. - L"_

Lid opened, chopsticks in hand, she places a Tiger Roll on her tongue, her eyes closing in unabashed bliss.

Kara's response comes in short measure, Lena's phone buzzing animatedly along her desk. The text is nothing but a string of emojis, entirely unintelligible and yet so perfectly Kara that she laughs out loud again.

The grin remains as she continues to eat, more content in this moment than she would have thought possible today.

With a glance at the clock, she reluctantly unlocks her computer and pulls up her email, intent on responding to one in particular she noticed on the car ride over here but knew would require a more detailed answer than what she felt like hammering out on her phone en route. While it loads, her eyes drift, landing on the stack of notes on the corner of her desk. Her missed calls and messages.

 _Might as well_.

She flips through the notes while she chews, scanning their contents, prioritizing them efficiently in her head, already working them seamlessly into her busy afternoon schedule.

Her entire body stills when she reaches the last message - a missed call from the National City Detention Center.

 _Mother._

Her smile cracks, shatters at her feet, and the laugh bubbling in her chest is sharp, a thing with claws. The call came to L-Corp. Not her cell.

 _She never could be bothered to learn my personal number._

The ahi sours on her tongue, and it takes a herculean effort to finish chewing, to force it down her throat where it sits like lead in her belly. When she looks at the remaining food on her desk, her gorge rises, and she quickly replaces the plastic lids with a resolute _snap_ , moves them to the trash can, her appetite thoroughly spoiled.

Switching back to her email, she pulls up her notes and prepares for the looming board meeting. A cloud passes in front of the sun, and the shadows grow along the corners of her office, silent and legion.

* * *

Lena drums her fingers along the keyboard, searching for the right turn of phrase for the speech she's outlining, the cursor taunting her from the screen with its unending blinking. The rhythmic tapping acts like a kinetic jolt, jarring something loose in her brain, and she begins typing once more, her fingers moving with frenetic speed, her lips twisting as she mouths the words silently to herself.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notes movement, sees the door to her office swing silently open on its hinges.

It's Jess, and Kara is in tow, her arms loaded down with bags bearing the name of the Italian restaurant at which she'd placed an order half an hour ago. Her mouth waters at the sight.

She doesn't linger on why.

Her hands still over her keys as she calls out, "Hey you...I'll just be a minute longer." A soft smile plays at the corner of her mouth.

Kara nods in response, offers her own sweet smile before sitting comfortably on the couch, the bags deposited unceremoniously on the coffee table nearby. And as she does every time she enters Lena's office, she leans forward to admire the petite flowers set into a simple glass vase in the center of the table, her fingers reaching out to trace a delicate petal with a gentle touch, her shoulders rising slightly as she inhales.

Lena herself can never seem to smell anything, god knows she's tried.

Kara hasn't actually said anything about the flowers since that first time last month, but her admiration for them is unwavering, and Lena finds she can't help herself. She watches Kara's ritual surreptitiously, her breath held, her eyes wide with wonder.

A smile as finespun as gossamer blooms on Kara's face, soft, private, and Lena feels unworthy of the light it emits, unsure she should even be allowed to witness it. There's something hauntingly beautiful about it, and although she wants to know more, wants to dig and analyze and know the meanings and the memories, she remains quiet. She remains still.

She's afraid. As if calling attention to it will cause it to fracture, a spiderweb of lines radiating across the space with a thunderous _crack_ until a masterpiece lies shattered at her feet.

So she watches. Every time.

And like clockwork, a new bouquet of plumeria arrives at her office every Monday morning, a promise of wonder curled into their fresh buds.

The moment passes, and Kara sits back, pulls impatiently at the bags of food on the table, the plastic crinkling a steady crescendo. A few more notes on her outline, an added comment to circle back to later, and that'll do for now. Unable to resist the dinner bell, Lena pushes back from her desk and crosses the office to join Kara for lunch.

Apart from the lone exception the other day when Lena spent her midday at the courthouse, Kara joins her at L-Corp practically every day for a lunch date. Sometimes the reporter will pick something up from Noonan's or Vino's along the way, always ordered and paid for ahead of time, while other days the pair have their food delivered to their doorstep.

The moment her legs hit the couch, a container appears beneath her nose, and when Lena opens it, sees the pasta, dusted with parmesan, dotted with capers, she barely manages to suppress a moan. The muffled giggle bubbling from her companion is not lost on her, and with a roll of the eyes, she picks up a fork and digs in.

The first bite down, she turns to Kara. "You're so indulgent with me, coming all the way here every day while I'm on house arrest, so to speak. Why won't you let Daniel pick you up in my car?" Kara begins to deflect, the conversation one they've had a handful of times over the past week. Before she can be interrupted, however, Lena amends, "C'mon, he adores you. You've clearly worked your magic on him already."

A beaming Kara shakes her head demurely. "I promise, it's not necessary." Lena pulls a face, disbelieving, but Kara continues, "Really! It's such a short distance, I mean I can practically fly here." The smirk that follows sparkles with amusement, and Kara's eyes fall to her lap while she reaches up to adjust her glasses along her nose.

Grinning at the deflection, Lena says, "I do owe you an explanation, though, for why I'm cloistered here at the office all the time. I mean I know I mentioned it briefly the other day, but you deserve to know the why." She stirs her pasta idly, the strands twining themselves gracefully around the tines of her fork. When Kara looks up, she continues, "I wouldn't dream of putting you in danger unknowingly. You are one of the few who knows what really happened a couple of weeks ago, what I did. But that circle has grown."

 _There it is._ The telltale line on her forehead. She presses on.

"Apparently, my mother has seen to it that her associates in Cadmus know, and, well, I'm not exactly winning popularity contests with the rest of National City, either, if we're being honest."

The line deepens, and Kara opens her mouth, begins to protest, but Lena simply shakes her head, continues to twirl her pasta. "Look, this isn't my first rodeo. And besides, our friend in the cape is watching out for me, right?" Her grin feels forced, the attempt at levity coming off sharp, discordant.

"Still, Lena, that's gotta be hard on you."

When she smiles this time, it bears a shadow of sadness. "It is what it is."

Kara's voice is low, her words measured and clear. And when she speaks, the words crawl beneath Lena's walls, etch themselves onto her skin. "Just because it's the right thing to do doesn't mean it's easy."

"There's always a price," she responds, her voice barely a whisper, a shadow covering the words like a veil.

They echo in her ears like a warning.

Straightening her back, she smirks, pivots in her seat, and pitching her voice low, she continues, "I guess it's a good thing I've got lunch to look forward to isn't it?" Punctuating her words with a quirk of her eyebrow, she takes another bite of her pasta, and Kara does the same.

 _Bzzzzz._

Lena's cell phone vibrates noisily against the table, the sound too severe, almost unnatural in the cottoned cocoon surrounding the couch. She reaches to silence it.

A life consumed by work, the seconds building to minutes, amassing into hours, the grains of sand spilling freely from their hourglass, bearing down upon her shoulders in a constant avalanche. It's the life she's chosen. The mantle she willingly bears. But there are days she chokes with it.

These minutes, these singular moments are ones she's carved out laboriously, and while the sand seeks to slither around the dam, take back its due inch by inch, she guards it jealously.

When she picks up the phone, the caller ID comes into stark relief, and she huffs out an impatient breath. "I've got to take this, unfortunately. Sorry..." she trails off, all apologies, putting her fork down and crossing the room to her desk. Kara simply nods, takes another bite, tracking Lena's movements.

"Hi, Jacob, what can I do for you?" When a member of the board calls, it behooves her to answer. Even during lunch, unfortunately.

During the first minute, she amuses herself by making annoyed faces at Kara from across the room, delighting in the easy grin reflecting back at her from the couch.

During the second minute of incessant talking, her blood pressure begins to rise, and there's a moment where a vivid fantasy plays out in high-definition in her mind - she opens the balcony door, pulls her arm back in a wind-up straight out of the major leagues, and expertly pitches her phone right over the side of the building. She imagines the voice on the other end talks the entire way down.

Her lips twitch at the thought.

During the third minute, her ears begin to bleed, absolutely full up of Jacob's soliloquy on quarterly performance measures. She tunes him out completely. The phone to her ear, she leans against her desk, her back to the room, watching the clouds track across the crisp blue sky. A particularly large one crosses in front of the sun, its edges billowing suggestively, its ceiling soaring far beyond sight into the stratosphere. It's the kind of cloud a kindergartener might recreate with cotton balls, a piece of art destined for the family refrigerator.

The window darkens for a moment at the eclipse, and Lena sees her office reflected in reverse. She wears her annoyance in neon across her features, a fact that only serves to vex her even more. Shifting focus, her eyes find reflected Kara. She sits in her place on the couch, her glasses pulled low on the bridge of her nose, and she's surveying the room slowly from side to side, top to bottom. It's methodical, her movement, and Lena's brow furrows, puzzled.

Something familiar tickles in the far reaches of her mind.

"Ms. Luthor," the voice in her ear drones, and she snaps back to attention, chastened.

It's a matter of another minute or two before she can smoothly extricate herself from the conversation, and when she returns to the couch, she finds that Kara has turned on the TV, its volume muted so as not to disturb.

"Addict," Lena teases, settling in close enough to Kara to needle her gently in the ribs.

"Work hazard," Kara responds around a mouthful of pasta as a pastiche of video clips play across the screen in dizzying flashes - scenes of vandalism, angry crowds shouting in the streets, an anti-alien protester getting punched in slow motion.

National City at its finest.

Lena cuts her eyes to Kara, sees the tell-tale line forming on her forehead. She raises her eyebrow but says nothing.

On screen the violence fades from sight, the picture turning to canned footage of a campaign rally, the shaky camerawork replaced by a professional hand, all practiced sweeps and purposeful zooms, the hallmark of the political candidate. Councilman Drummond stands amidst an adoring and energetic crowd, his image as polished as ever, his suit immaculately tailored. He grins roguishly and shakes a closed fist over the podium, his audience whipping into a frenzy at his feet.

A ticker scrolls along the bottom edge of the screen. _Mayoral candidate asks for calm; Questions incumbent's priorities; Promises Humans First._

Her lips pucker unconsciously, her teeth chewing holes along the inside of her lip. When she turns her head, she finds Kara's face pinched, her lips pressed into a tight line. Without preamble, Lena leans across her and grabs the remote off of the table, plunging the screen into darkness. "That's enough of that, I think." When Kara looks at her quizzically, Lena's eyes flicker to her brow, to the way it smooths, flattens once more, and she continues, "How was your morning? Did Snapper make anyone cry yet, or is the day still too young?"

The reporter scrunches her mouth to one side as she thinks.

It isn't until Kara speaks that Lena comes to her senses, manages to tear her eyes away from the sight. Even then, she misses the first few words, her brain slow to turn to another subject.

"A mother came by the office. Her daughter's gone missing, and all she wanted was some help looking for her. And Snapper...it was like he didn't even care." The scowl returns, but it's colored by something else this time.

"It didn't phase him at all. I don't...I don't understand how he could just stand there like that. Like he's made of stone."

Kara talks, vents. She works through it backward and forward, shifting from anger to confusion, from confusion to passion to righteousness in the span of minutes.

Lena observes the process, presses now and then, pokes and prods and provokes, a scientist watching a volatile element react to an array of forces. But she lets Kara make the steps on her own.

Until it happens. Kara's brow smooths, her face clears, her eyes focus with startling clarity. Millions of micro-expressions cascading in a fraction of a second.

Resolution. She is steel, and anyone standing in her way doesn't stand a chance.

Lena doesn't notice the soft smile on her own lips, the way her eyes turn wistful at the sight. Not until it's too late.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

 _Because you are a force of good in this ugly world. Because you have a kind heart. Because being around you makes me want to be a better person._

But the only answer Lena supplies is a coy smile and a minute shake of her head. After a beat, she says simply, "Be careful, Kara," her head inclined to the darkened TV looming ominously over her shoulder. "There are dangerous elements at work in National City these days."

An unreadable look crosses Kara's features before she nods, and they continue their lunch. Stray clouds pass outside the window, eclipsing the sun, covering the office in dappled shadow. When they move out of sight, the shadow cast by the vase on the table shifts subtly, tickles Lena's knee where it rests near the table's edge.

As Kara retrieves their dessert from the plastic take-away bags - two servings of tiramisu - Lena chews on her lip, glancing up under her lashes. Swallowing quickly, she starts, "I actually have something I wanted to ask you before you have to go." Standing, she crosses to her desk where she grabs a stack of items from their perch on the corner and returns, her steps measured and even, her nerves masked with practiced precision. When she sits, she settles a little closer to Kara on the couch, her knee bumping Kara's in the process.

When she hands her a card from the top of the stack bearing the title _Ms. Kara Danvers_ in elegant script, Kara's confusion is plain, her head cocked adorably.

The first words of explanation are colored with nerves, and Lena's eyes widen in panic when she hears herself, but it's gone in a fraction of a second, swept away with another grain of sand, and the casual confidence suffusing her words now settle the anxiousness fluttering in her veins.

"So, you said something last week that inspired me, and I've kind of set things in motion…"

The envelope opened, the invitation sits gingerly in Kara's hands.

"It's a fundraiser for a local organization that provides after school programming for girls focusing on science and technology." When Kara doesn't speak, Lena fills the silence. "This part is, well, it's kind of a secret, but I trust you won't tell, right? L-Corp is establishing a college scholarship fund to be awarded to five girls in National City interested in pursuing degrees in STEM fields."

The past week has been a whirlwind - the calls, the meetings, the coordination involved in trying to pull something like this together on short notice, but it's been enlivening, and when she lays down in her empty apartment at the end of the night, the sheets cool around her, there's a warmth in her chest radiant enough to heat the room.

The invitation still hovers in mid-air, but Kara turns, her mouth open, her eyes wide. And still, she doesn't speak.

A silent Kara Danvers? Something must be wrong.

Lena feels her confidence stutter and falter, wilting like a bloom past its prime. "Too much?" she ventures quietly, eyebrow raised in question.

She's afraid of the answer.

"Oh my god, Lena...I...you…" Kara trips over her words, searches desperately for one that will work before ultimately giving them up in favor of something akin to a squeal, the delighted shriek sending a delicious shock of warmth tingling through Lena's veins, the smile pulling widely at her cheeks.

"I hope you don't have plans. I was really hoping you'd go with me. It was your idea, after all."

Kara squeals a little again, her body practically vibrating, and she leans over to hug Lena quickly, unable to contain herself.

"Wait, is this safe for you? Do you want me to invite Supergirl again?" Kara pulls back, her hand sliding down Lena's arm before coming to rest beneath her elbow, where her fingers wrap securely along her forearm.

Lena's skin tingles like a live wire, and when she responds, the word comes out stronger than she had intended, her system surging unexpectedly. "No! I mean, she's welcome, she's always welcome, and god only knows she'll probably be there anyway." Guilt crosses her face briefly as she clarifies, "I have a feeling I'll be in hot water for doing something so public. But, as an incredibly intelligent woman told me recently, 'Just because it's the right thing to do doesn't mean it's easy.'"

When Kara ducks her head, Lena presses, and the tone that comes out of her mouth now is one she's still not used to, one that's only found an outlet in recent weeks.

It's her own voice.

"So, what'll it be? Care to throw caution to the wind and come with me to the charity fundraiser, Kara Danvers?"

A blush like the sunrise climbs across Kara's features as she responds, "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

For a moment the shadow cast by the bouquet of prim white flowers hesitates, recedes, pushed back by the sun.


	7. Chapter 7

_Current Day_

She hears nothing.

Not at first, anyway.

Not the high-pitched electric hum of the machines lining the walls, their screens alight with a litany of readings and measurements, the numbers in a constant state of flux.

Not the subtle sounds of grief - the sniffling, the ragged breaths, the unsteady shuffling of the four other people crowded into the room beside her.

Nothing.

It's as if the laws of the universe have been suspended. The lights overhead seem to flutter and flicker, and the edges of her world turn gauzy. Indistinct. Like she's caught in a terrible dream.

 _This isn't real._

For a moment she feels nothing. Her body lies in a shattered heap on the floor, the shards jagged, innumerable, and they gleam dully where the hazy light catches their edges. She has no limbs to weigh her down, no heart to break. There's nothing left to feel. Lena Luthor exists in tatters, empty and numb.

Some would call it shock. Not that the name matters. Not really.

 _This isn't real. It can't be._

She clings to the thought with the tenacity of the truest believer, as if sheer will alone can bring a wish to life.

But it doesn't last. It never even stands a chance.

In actuality, it's exactly that thought, that wish that sows its own demise. It's the cruelest of ironies that the act, the desire to refute reality so often serves only to drag it further into the light. By closing her eyes, she calls it into being, gives it shape, breathes life into its twisted limbs.

It grows teeth, claws.

And when reality creeps into her periphery, insinuates itself around the edges, it drives a wedge into the cracks until it breaks her wide open.

It starts with a heartbeat.

At first, it's a dull thing, the distant bleat of an alarm, obscure and indeterminate, barely discernible in the background. But with each second it grows, like the footsteps of an invading army, the ground trembling with a promise. A threat. Closer and closer it marches - _thump, thump, thump_ \- until, finally, it cannot be ignored. It pounds in her ears, clatters against her ribs as if trying to break free. Her heart beats like timpani, thundering in her veins, vibrating in her limbs. It shakes loose the gauze covering her eyes, which flutters to the ground in ribbons.

The dream disintegrates, and she wakes to a nightmare.

A half-dozen lamps hang suspended above the bed against the far wall, an entire sky full of suns orbiting Supergirl, who lies unmoving at the center beneath their yellow rays, encircled in a blinding corona of light.

An alarm sounds, high and insistent, its piercing note too shrill in the close confines of the room, and she winces at the pain in her ears. But it's gone as quickly as it came.

Lena takes a step closer without intending to, and the warmth that greets her is solid, full-bodied. Her skin crackles, and though her lungs burn with every inhalation, she takes another trembling step forward, unable to stop herself, a victim of gravity. She stands alone at the foot of the bed, spine straight, eyes dry, her face aglow with fire along the edge of the ring.

The body beneath her gaze is wrong. It's all wrong.

Kara's hair spreads behind her head like a tarnished halo, matted with dried blood, darkened with soot, its golden radiance impossibly muted. Her suit, the vibrant symbol of hope for an entire city, is almost unrecognizable, ashen, the colors drained from its fibers. Entire portions of the fabric are missing, burned away to reveal a patchwork of angry skin, spattered with crimson, streaked with black, with gray, speckled with luminous green.

Lena's stomach turns at the kaleidoscope, and she drags her eyes back to Kara's face in search of refuge. In search of familiarity.

But it, too, is wrong. Kara's face has always burned white-hot, sometimes with happiness, sometimes with fury, always with passion - the kind of face too dazzling for mere mortals such as herself to gaze upon for any length of time. But the brightness is gone, and in its place is a shadowy imitation, her cheeks soot-stained, hollow. An eclipse. And still Lena finds herself unable to look too long upon her face, but for altogether different reasons than before.

She's an angel fallen, her halo stained, her wings burned, tattered. Her body broken.

Smoke swirls in the air, and brimstone burns acrid in Lena's lungs. She tastes ash on her tongue.

Her gaze falls on the blackened red of a mangled boot, a leg bent at an impossible angle, and as she feels her stomach lurch, she takes a deep breath, tries to focus on a single detail - a speck of green embedded into a field of blue. It's one of dozens, hundreds, a tapestry of emeralds sparkling beneath the circle of lights like crown jewels on display, their blinding radiance a stark juxtaposition to the charred setting.

When recognition hits her, Lena stands stock still, and her breath leaves her in shaking gasps.

"Kryptonite?"

The sound of her voice surprises her, raspy and broken, all jagged edges, and she winces at the pain woven into the words, at the vulnerability underlying the tone. It hangs suspended in the thickened air, half question, half accusation, and it shatters the funereal silence like crystal. Everyone blinks, drags in a labored breath, as if they're all waking at once from a dream.

Ripping her eyes away from the circle of light, she looks at the ragged crew around her, her gaze jumping from one to another and back again in a disjointed orbit, too agitated to land, to rest. Each wears their devastation a little differently - flared nostrils, slumped shoulders, white knuckles, a hand held in suspense over a mouth.

A solitary tear rolls silently down Alex's cheek. It drops to the floor unnoticed.

In the end, it's J'onn who meets her eyes, who manages to gather the strength to speak. "Yes," he begins, swallowing harshly, his jaws clenching and releasing, clenching and releasing. "We need to run tests, but...yes."

His eyes break away, slide back to Kara, bathed in sunlight. He continues, "It was a dirty bomb, carrying shrapnel and Kryptonite, designed to cut down everyone there...human or otherwise." Pain flickers like flames across his face. His jaw tightens again.

Lena's heartbeat cracks like thunder in her ears.

"But...but where would they even get the Kryptonite?" The words spill from her unchecked, too quickly to stopper, and as soon as she hears them spoken aloud, as soon as the shape of them touch her ears, she grasps what's she said.

 _They._ Not _who._ Her mind has already settled the question of _who_. The realization chills her to her core. It's an odd sensation, a perversion, to be standing beneath a ring of lamps, to know objectively that the heat of the sun warms her skin just as surely as it warms Kara, but she feels none of it. Ice floods her veins, and chilled fingers plunge into her chest, wrap themselves around her heart with the shocking ease of familiarity.

She wants to fold, wants to splinter into a thousand shards of ice and disappear into the floor. But still, she remains standing. Unblinking. Her shoulders pulled back, her jaw tight, she's frozen in place.

Not even the too-fast thrum of her heartbeat can shake her loose.

"That's what we intend to find out," J'onn growls, the threat in his voice sharp-edged.

Winn moves with the suddenness of a man with a purpose, hand dropping from his mouth resolutely, and Lena blinks in surprise at the movement. Stepping quickly to the far side of the room, he slings open a drawer, thrusts his hand inside and sifts through the contents impatiently before pulling back a petri dish and something akin to tweezers, the stainless steel glinting in the harsh overhead light.

There's an economy of movement that's mesmerizing to watch, a smoothness that stands as a stark contrast to his usual jittery, twitchy motions. The difference is startling. Efficient, purposeful he snares a sliver of Kryptonite with the medical tool and pulls firmly, placing it in the petri dish with a dull _clink_. "I'm gonna go get this analyzed, see if it was from the stolen shipment a few months ago or-," he trails off as he gets closer to the door, and he leaves the room behind without once raising his eyes.

The smoke-thickened air swirls in his wake, and when he leaves it's as if he pulls the remaining vestiges of fog and uncertainty with him, exposing the raw wounds, the deep reds, the dazzling greens, the piercing beeps of the medical machinery. The sharpness cuts like a blade. The room wakes from its slumber, and time resumes its course, an eternity passed in the blink of an eye.

But his exit does something else as well. The movement calls to Lena's cells, to her atoms. She can feel them realigning in her limbs, bending and jostling and vibrating with energy. She feels it like a phantom caress across her skin, a whisper in her ear. It's a catalyst. A spark. And it ignites a fire in her veins, one that urges movement of its own. A need to act.

She's a Luthor, after all. And Luthors don't stand still.

Each heartbeat rattles in her limbs like a hammer striking a forge, the sparks white hot in her veins. Steel knits itself across her brokenness, not mending it, not exactly, but holding her together nonetheless.

When every inch of her vibrates, she feels it climbing up her arms, itching along her skin, and gathering about her shoulders, but not as the heavy armor she's so used to hiding herself under, the kind that weighs her down and pinches and cuts at the delicate skin beneath.

Not this time.

It settles about her, a cape. Like Kara's. Like Supergirl's. To her, it's strength, not protection. And when the hammer falls again, she answers the call to action.

She turns to Alex, who looks up with red-rimmed eyes. Ghosts linger behind her lashes, lurk in the hollows of her cheeks. Alex is a woman haunted.

Lena's question is simple: "What needs to be done?" There's a steadiness in it that she doesn't quite feel herself, and she latches onto it, sinks into it, lets it insinuate itself into her bones.

And Alex hears it, too - it calls to her like a lifeline. A purpose. A mission. Lena can see it in the way her eyes clear and focus, the shadows receding. Something stirs and solidifies there. Her shoulders pull back, her spine straightens, and she takes a deep breath.

Her fingers are still entwined with Maggie's, and her knuckles are white where she grips, but the woman standing in the center of the room is entirely different than the one who was here a moment ago. _This is Agent Danvers_ , Lena thinks to herself.

"We were making a plan when you got here a minute ago," Alex says, nodding at J'onn. At the reminder, he stirs, moving toward the exit, presumably to begin the task they had laid out before, but when he reaches Alex's side he pauses, pulling her into a gentle hug. There's no warning, no fanfare - he simply engulfs her in his arms, and she sinks into the embrace with the totality of a child, the gun against her hip shifting slightly where his arm knocks it askew.

The moment is familial, and Lena stands on the periphery feeling like an interloper, an intruder into a private grief. Her eyes fall to the floor. Footsteps sound, but rather than pass her by she watches the boots, large, authoritative, stop in front of her. A warm hand grips her shoulder, and looking up, J'onn's eyes are soft where they watch her. He doesn't say a word. Doesn't have to. A quick squeeze and he's gone, his back retreating through the door.

Alex leaps into action with a renewed sense of urgency, crossing to the far wall and pulling out a laundry list of supplies with the calculated calm of someone who knows this room, this routine like the back of their hand. The noise of metal instruments clattering on metal trays is almost enough to cover Alex's quiet sniffling.

Almost.

When Alex finally turns and makes her way to Kara's side, she carries a tray piled high with gear in her outstretched hand. "First things first-," she barks, all _Agent_ again, nodding vaguely toward Supergirl lying before them, "-this shit's got to go."

With the tray deposited on a moveable cart, which she then rolls to a stop near the foot of the bed, Alex grabs a couple of items off the top, tossing something at Maggie without even looking up. Maggie catches it with ease. And then it's Lena's turn. She nearly misses, nearly drops them, the speed catching her off guard, but when they sit securely in her outstretched hands, she realizes what they are - latex gloves.

With a shuddery breath, she unballs them, sliding them over her trembling fingers with a calm she doesn't feel. The fit isn't right. The edges sit loosely against her wrist.

Maggie and Lena receive their marching orders in clipped sentences and firm tones, authority lacing every syllable. Lena marvels at it. In all honesty, she recognizes the tactic as a familiar one. After all, it's one she's used on a nearly daily basis for well over half of her life. Lock away the emotion, at least for awhile, in order to manufacture order out of chaos. A grin twitches at her lips, the sensation strange, almost foreign, and she fights the urge to raise her hand to it, to verify its existence. The spark of kinship flickering in her chest only serves to reinforce it, however, and she allows herself a second longer to watch Agent Danvers taking control before reaching for the forceps or tweezers or whatever the hell they're called, along with one of several metal containers.

Stepping around the cart, she moves toward the head of the bed, her heels clicking resolutely against the tile. With the final step, her hips flush against the edge of the mattress, she crosses fully into the ring of light, another body in orbit. The suns above beat mercilessly against her neck as she looks down at the center of her galaxy.

It happens slowly. So slowly. But she finds she's powerless to stop it.

She doesn't want to.

So near to Kara, her right hand holds the forceps, its mission defined. But her left hand aches with emptiness, and it reaches for Kara by rote, drawn to her with the familiarity of routine, a movement she's made in one form or another day after day for the past six weeks. It's like coming home.

Her hand lands softly on Kara's bicep, her fingers tracing a line in the soot-covered fabric of her suit. It's wrong. It's all wrong. Kara is cold beneath her touch, and Lena jerks her hand back as if she's been burned. The cold creeps with clawed fingers up her outstretched arm, marks her skin with frost. The hair on her neck stands tall.

With a harsh swallow, she attempts to regain her composure, but the tremble in her hands give her away. Placing the forceps around a sliver of Kryptonite embedded firmly in Kara's arm, she pulls. It pulls back, offering a resistance she didn't expect. Whether it's caught on the fibers of the suit, or whether it's pulling on the skin beneath, she doesn't know. God, she doesn't know and she doesn't want to know. With a final tug, the object comes loose, and her hand cuts quickly through the air until it hovers above the metal basin, where she releases her hold.

The crystalline mineral rattles harmlessly against the stainless steel with a shrill clatter, the sound ringing acutely in her ears. Its jagged edge is dark with blood, but it quickly transitions to iridescent green, and the combination of the two is jarring. It's the blood that disturbs her most of all, though. It's not something she's ever associated with Supergirl - all of the times the Girl of Steel has fought on her behalf, all of the times she's been knocked down, battered, and gotten up again, she's never seen a drop of it. Seeing it now-

She tastes iron, and she thinks _how strange,_ only to realize too late that she's bitten her lip too hard. Again.

She bleeds, too.

Looking up, she finds Maggie's eyes on her. They crinkle at the corners, and a sad smile ghosts around her lips. Breathing deeply, ignoring the smoke in her lungs, Lena lifts her forceps once more and sets to work.

The room fills with sound - soft exhalations of effort, the occasional shuddering breath, but above all the soft _ping_ of dozens of shards of Kryptonite rattling noisily against stainless steel. Each one an aria, each one an opus.

Lena works with a focus normally reserved for time in the lab, her attention to detail meticulous, her mission singular. Her hands have long since lost their tentativeness, and her movements are those of a scientist long since used to working with impossibly minuscule subjects with surgical precision.

She maintains her focus reasonably well, working around the wires and electrodes laced to various stretches of skin, taking measurements and reporting back to the machines keeping watch along the wall, numbers and lines flashing across their faces with regularity.

Lena pays them no mind.

But when she reaches the crest on Supergirl's chest, the symbol of family, the symbol of hope, her focus breaks, and her heart constricts impossibly in her ribcage, robbing her of breath. Half of the "S" is so charred it's almost unrecognizable, the other half's color muted to grayscale by layers of soot, and throughout littered with dazzling emerald green.

All she can do is stare.

Until fingernails dig into her palm, sharp and insistent, and she blinks back the tears threatening to form. An uneasy breath knocks in her lungs, but it's sharp, raw, as if they, too, glitter in terrible green.

"What happened?" she finally asks. Her voice is quiet, but in the hushed room it's almost deafening. It's been almost thirty minutes since anyone has spoken. And still she can't quite look away from the charred symbol emblazoned on Kara's chest.

Next to her, Alex blinks - once, twice, but no words come. Instead, it's Maggie who speaks, her eyes warm, her words halting.

"There was a big, um, political rally tonight at City Hall-"

"The mayor's reelection bid?" Lena asks, and Maggie nods.

"It was a pretty good sized crowd. Hundreds of supporters. And of course a few dozen protesters out front behind the barricades. The usual for National City these days."

When Alex speaks, her voice is a whisper. "Kara was there for work. She-" Alex swallows, focuses on pulling another shard of Kryptonite from her sister before continuing, "-she radioed in that she saw someone suspicious leaving a restricted area. Someone she thought looked familiar."

The mineral drops against the stainless steel container with shrill finality.

"She and Winn both ran scans of the building. There was a...a bomb." The words begin to tumble out more hurriedly, and Alex's voice wavers with the effort, her hands stilled against her sister's outstretched legs, her task momentarily forgotten. "We mobilized but when she found it, she said there were only 30 seconds left on the clock."

Her face twists, turns, her jaw quivering as she explains, "There wasn't enough time. So she took it as far away as she could. We thought-, we thought we had more time." The tears perched precariously along the rim of Alex's eyes spill over when she shakes her head, as if unable to believe the words she's saying. She sniffles, fighting to regain control before continuing. "It must have malfunctioned," she clarifies, dragging in a ragged breath, a death rattle in her ribs. "It, um, it went early."

Maggie sets down her forceps in the metal container she's been filling along her side of the bed, and she steps silently around the end to Alex, pulling her into an embrace. Alex's shoulders rise and fall as the quiet sobs rack her body, and Maggie places soft kisses in her hair, brushing it away from her forehead where it rests against her own shoulder.

Lena's own tears fall quietly, marked by no one.

Save for that small betrayal, the salt marring her cheeks, her grief is internalized. It cuts savagely into her lungs, screams tearing at her throat with sharpened claws and gnashing teeth. It's smoke burning in her nose, ice racing up the length of her arms, wrapping around her heart.

She tastes salt, and it mixes with the iron of her busted lip. It's the grief of the solitary.

When she looks down, she finds that her tears have landed along Kara's sleeve, tracking shaky lines through the soot. The deep blue shines through in glimpses and flashes with the brilliance of a star flickering in the bruised evening sky. She places her hand on Kara's arm and closes her eyes.

It's another minute before they return to work, Maggie trading out the forceps for a tin of water and a stack of sterile rags, working behind the two of them to clean Kara's skin where she can. Quiet settles around them like a shroud, and no one dares disturb it.

At least for a little while.

But something nags at the back of Lena's mind, it itches and wriggles and makes itself known. Turning Alex's words over and over again, examining them backwards and forwards with the fastidiousness of a scientist, analyzing every sentence, every scenario - she keeps circling back to the same question.

 _They thought they had more time, but Kara wouldn't have made a mistake...she would have known when to let go._

"Did you have your own clock running?"

Her question is sudden, and Alex looks up at her with narrowed eyes. The agent doesn't require context, however. She simply nods in the affirmative.

"How much time did you have when it, um,...when it exploded?" Her voice breaks at the end, and she finds it hard to maintain eye contact.

Alex's brows furrow when she responds, "It wasn't right. It went early. Winn's clock still had nine seconds."

The equation plays out in Lena's mind, the factors aligning and realigning, shifting into position until it clicks with startling finality. She stills, forceps held mid-air in her trembling hand. Her jaw drops slightly, her lips parting, and the words escape on a breath held too long.

"What if it was manually triggered?" Alex's eyes shoot up, fasten on her own with startling speed. "What if she was the target all along?"

A sharp intake of breath, and Alex's jaw drops as well. Her eyes widen.

"Goddammit," Maggie says softly across the bed. "Alex…"

Nostrils flared, jaws clenched, Alex's voice is steel, cold and unyielding, when she speaks again. "An assassination attempt. But not on the Mayor. On Supergirl."

"Did Cadmus do this?" Lena asks quietly. The question feels superfluous. She feels the answer in her hollow of her bones, in the way guilt slip-slides in her belly. But she asks for the sake of asking. For the sake of certainty. "Did my mother-," she swallows, gathers her nerve, "-did she do this?"

Alex sighs shakily, starts to reach her hand up to run through her fingers through her hair in an anxious gesture, but she stops midway, remembering the gloves. Her hand falls to the bed, frustrated, where it balls into a fist. "I don't know. Cadmus isn't the only player in the game anymore. They inspired others. But…" She doesn't finish the thought, doesn't need to. She presses her fist into the mattress, the material dimpling and caving around it.

"Look, my lab is state of the art. Whatever you need. L-Corp is at your disposal. Just name it."

Alex simply nods, and they return to their tasks once more, their movements sharper than before, more urgent. They work in silence, save for the soft _clink_ of Kryptonite skittering harmlessly across steel, the slow drip of water when Maggie rinses the cloth of soot and dirt, or the steady hums and whirrs of the machinery along the wall, Kara's electric guardians.

They barely speak when, as a team, she and Maggie each grab an arm, and gingerly they pull Kara forward, allowing Alex access to scour her back for shrapnel, adding to their collection. In the end, they fill three deep instrument trays with jeweled slivers, some coated in blood, some blackened and charred, but all still somehow shimmering in the harsh light of the overhead lamps like some sort of fool's treasure.

Alex steps back, evaluates the situation with military efficiency, and when she speaks, it's with the voice of Agent Danvers once more. "We need to set her bones."

She doesn't elaborate, doesn't need to. Lena can connect the dots. With the Kryptonite removed, the poison sucked from her system with painstaking care, if Kara's body is going to heal, if she's going to recover at all, then it starts now. And everything needs to be in place.

Alex repositions herself over one of Kara's calves, and without looking up, she gestures with her chin, "Lena, hold her right there." She speaks with the confidence of someone who has done this before, and Lena doesn't dare question her. She wraps her hands around Kara's leg as Alex mutters, "Hold it still!" The muscles beneath her fingers are dense, and her brain works against her, calling up memories, images of the last time she'd traced her thumbs along this thigh. Her eyes close, and she wraps herself in it like a cape, sinks into its safety, her heart beating a wild tattoo in her veins.

The crunch of bone, the sickening scrape and pop travel through her fingertips, up her arms, past her heart, and settle like lead in her stomach, puncturing the warm memory along the way. Her skin pales, and her knees weaken disloyally below her. Sweat beads along her brow and falls to the bed in mockery.

Her heart remains lodged firmly in her throat, pulsing too hard to be of any comfort.

She takes a shaky breath. And another. And another. They move to the next one, and the process repeats.

Throughout it, Kara remains unmoving beneath them.

When they've done what they can, when Kara's limbs no longer stick out at impossible angles and the soot has been washed away where possible, they step back, their feet falling outside the ring of light, and after so long spent in the sun, their eyes take a moment to adjust, the rest of the room seemingly deep in shadow in comparison.

The shadows only serve to illuminate Lena's pallor, and Maggie eyes her critically, her eyebrows narrowing. A look passes between Alex and Maggie, followed by a touch, soft, telegraphing a decision. Alex nods

"C'mon, Luthor, you look like you could use some water." It's not a request, or at least Lena doesn't read it as such. Maggie's tone doesn't leave much room for such an interpretation.

Lena doesn't resist. Her feet move of their own accord, one after the other, and she pads shakily across the room to the door, her heels scraping slowly along the tiles. Only once does she pause to look back, and a fresh tear tracks down her cheek as she exits the room.

The path the detective leads them down is every bit as labyrinthine as the one they took upon arrival - a right, a left, and a left again. Every hallway frustratingly uniform. But it's different this time. She knows where Kara is, and there's an unspoken certainty that no matter how long they walk, how far they go, she'll be able to find her way back.

Gravity will pull her back into orbit.

The next turn leads the pair into an open area, some sort of command center, if she had to guess. Banks of terminals and monitors ring the center of the room, and agents huddle around them, their focus total. J'onn catches sight of them when they enter, and he moves with surprising speed to intercept.

"Detective. Ms. Luthor. I-"

"Lena. Please. Lena." Her voice is tired, but the rawness of before is absent, her tone much more the polished businesswoman than it has been at any other point tonight. The walk seems to have done some good after all.

"Lena. I just wanted to offer you the use of our barracks." He gestures toward the opposite door before continuing. "It's nothing fancy, and it's not private, but I understand your...situation, and I wanted you to know that you're welcome to use them."

"I-," she begins, but words fail her, her heart beats too hard in her ears, in her throat. She settles on a watery smile, a shaky nod. It's enough.

Another minute, another hallway, and Maggie slows, stops, points toward a nondescript door. "Ladies room. Think you can find your way back if I go ahead and get back to Alex?"

Lena nods, and Maggie mirrors the movement in her own response. The detective opens her mouth again, looks uncertain, as if she's about to say something else, but in the end she closes it wordlessly, turning back the way they came, her steps quick and purposeful.

The bathroom is blessedly empty when she enters, her steps echoing off the hard surfaces all around. She intends to run some cold water, to lean her weary limbs against the marble countertop, but with each step the room spins further and further out of focus, the lights overhead blurring and shifting. Her legs, her arms drag her down like anchors, and she can feel herself pulling away from consciousness with each passing second.

Her shoulder slams into the cold door of the first stall, and she falls to her knees just in time, her stomach clenching painfully, emptying its contents into the bowl. As the heaving eases, she leans her head heavily against her arm, lacking the energy to hold it high any longer. Hot tears spring from her eyes. They fall unconstrained. The hands gripping the bowl in front of her are clammy, dotted with sweat, but they're clean, she can see that.

In the end, it doesn't matter. The mere sight of them calls up phantoms, the feeling of bone crunching beneath her fingers, of skin torn, broken. She heaves again. Again and again.

Eventually, there's nothing left.

It takes a few moments for the chill of the porcelain to seep into her skin, for her stomach to settle to a dull growl. But when her thoughts finally regain a semblance of coherence, she stirs, leverages herself up and out, ignoring the ache in her knees.

The water in the sink is refreshingly cold, and it soothes the burn her throat where it trickles down. A few stray drops drip down her neck and dampen the collar of her blouse when she stands. The fabric sticks to her skin uncomfortably.

 _Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz._

There's a vibration against her thigh, insistent, and slipping her hand into the hidden pocket of her skirt, Lena withdraws her cell phone, long since forgotten.

A handful of texts, dozens of emails, none of which matter. But the two missed calls from Daniel blinking red across her screen leave a rivet of guilt, hot and leaden in her stomach.

The eyes staring out at her from the mirror are red and swollen, and the effect against her porcelain skin is haunting. It's wrong. All wrong.

With a shuddering breath, she pulls her eyes away, pulls up a new text message, Daniel's number showing on her screen.

 _I'm so sorry. I'm fine. Will explain later. Car on Parker near city park. I'm sorry._

The response comes within seconds.

 _Please take care Ms. Luthor. Call if I can be of any assistance._

Before she can turn off her screen, a breaking news alert pops up in her notifications: _Drummond Organizes Supergirl Vigil_

She feels it then, pulsing hot in her veins, pounding against her ears, a fury so complete it staggers her. Her hand cramps around the phone, her knuckles white. She wants to throw it. Wants the satisfaction of it.

But her eyes fall to her text screen, to the message below Daniel's, the one she sent to Kara earlier tonight. The anger withers, recedes, washed away on the tide. It leaves only longing in its wake.

Instead, she pushes a button, and holding the phone to her ear, she listens to Kara's voicemail. Again. But she turns away from the mirror to do so, unwilling to watch the shadows in her own eyes.

Unable to.

By the time she returns to the makeshift hospital room, her eyes are dry, the swelling around them subsided, at least partially. Maggie stands with her arms around Alex by the side of the bed, and Lena hovers in the doorway, unable to shake the feeling that she's intruding on something private, something she's not privileged enough to see.

But when Alex raises her eyes, a quick nod of the head is all it takes.

Alex must have been busy while they were away. Kara lies on the bed beneath her lamps, but the suit is gone, replaced by a pair of comfortable looking DEO sweats, the fabric bulging in spots around mountains of bandages.

Moving to the far side, Lena drags a stool close to the bed, settles herself atop it, her spine straight, her breath even.

"I'm sorry," Alex begins. "About earlier. I…" The words trail off, and Alex stands there looking lost. Broken.

Lena nods, waves it off. "I meant what I said. Whatever I can do."

On the other side of the bed, Alex pulls her own chair, and Maggie stands behind her, arms wrapped protectively around her shoulders. Silence settles around them once more, and they let it.

With tentative movements, Lena reaches forward, her fingers sliding across Kara's hand, wrapping slowly across Kara's wrist.

And so it starts with a heartbeat. At first, it's a dull thing, distant and thready, but as soon as it vibrates into her fingertips, stirs the atoms under her skin, her own heart picks up the rhythm, carries it to every vessel, down to every cell.

She hears nothing else. Not anymore.


	8. Chapter 8

_5 Weeks Ago_

It sits there untouched, its face dark, the persistent silence worrying at her nerves, leaving them dangling like a loose thread along a hem, the kind that demands to be pulled, to be unraveled. Unable to resist, Lena's eyes stray from her computer, sliding to the cell phone sitting quietly in the middle of her desk, a movement repeated a hundred times already today.

Reaching out, the glass cool beneath her outstretched fingers, she presses the button to bring up her home screen, the message _no new notifications_ appearing in stark sans serif. It's what she expected. Nothing has changed, no alerts have sounded.

And still, she checks. Just in case. Another pull at the loose thread.

Pushing back from the desk, Lena slowly swivels her chair around, the crisp whites and elegant lines of her executive office giving way to a bank of windows. The view is different today. National City is gone, the streets below lost to the storm clouds that rolled in hours ago like a leaden ocean tide. All that remains are its mirrored peaks where they pierce the gloom here and there like lonely islands, ghostly remnants of a forgotten world.

Not that she sees them.

Her eyes are unfocused, her thumb rubbing listlessly along the sleek metal edge of the phone growing heavy in her hand. Ounce by ounce the weight presses until the scales tip. Pulling it close, she opens her texts, Kara's name at the top of the queue.

The last text in the string was from this morning. Walking through the lobby of her apartment building on her way to the office, she'd passed by another tenant, Mrs. Miller, leading her black lab, Wallace, back inside from his morning walk, a string of puddles dotting the tiled floor in their wake.

Mrs. Miller is...a little eccentric. Today Wallace was sporting a yellow rain slicker and miniature galoshes like some sort of oversized Paddington Bear. Lena stopped in the lobby to wish them both good morning, and they were gracious enough to pose for a quick snap. The picture isn't anything special; his tail is blurry and his tongue is hanging sideways out of his mouth. He's the picture of class and decorum - and completely irresistible.

There's no question it's the kind of thing that would send Kara into peals of delighted giggles. The kind of thing that would make her nose scrunch up as she laughs.

But the timestamp on the outgoing message reads 6:28 a.m., more than six and a half hours ago. There's been no response.

A flick of her thumb and she scrolls up through the text chain. A random check-in Lena had sent last night. A question yesterday afternoon. A text of nothing but emojis she sent yesterday during a particular grueling board meeting.

And nothing from Kara but silence.

For a day and a half.

A gust of wind whips along the building, and a cold tendril snakes into her office through the open balcony door.

She chews unconsciously on the inside of her cheek, her mind vacillating between the worry that something's happened to Kara and the certainty that Lena's done something to mess up...whatever this is. Both feel irrational. _It's Kara, for chrissakes_. She's chided herself for her overreaction a hundred times.

But rejection still aches dully, pulling at her ribs, weighing down her limbs. And worry still sits like lead in her gut. The two slide uncomfortably against one another, oil and water, existing side by side but never mixing.

A heavy sigh passes her lips. With a push of a button, the phone's screen goes dark in her hand, and she moves quickly to put it away, to set it far out of sight before she can glimpse the disappointment she's sure to find in her eyes reflected back at her in the darkened glass, another silent specter.

Turning back to her computer, she returns to her email and continues her work, the afternoon conference call with the CFO and the board approaching faster than she'd anticipated.

Alone in her office at the top of the world, she sits exposed, nerves raw, a mountain of unraveled thread piled at her feet.

* * *

It's late. Her eyes closed, her head resting heavily against the doorway, Lena brushes her teeth with robotic movements, the monotony prematurely lulling her into the realm of sleep. Even so, the prolonged _bzzz_ of her cell phone vibrating in place on her bedside table is enough to pierce the fog. Holding her head over the sink, she spits and rinses her mouth, flipping the light switch off as she passes through the doorway. A new icon appears on her phone screen - a new text.

It's from Kara.

 _lena i'm so sorry! i was out of cell range on a story. can't wait to tell you all about it_

Relief seeps through her skin, her muscles, soaks into the marrow of her bones, leaves her feeling light, and when butterflies tickle in her veins, the combination leaves her dizzy and disoriented, as if she's just stepped off a merry go round and is trying desperately to get the ground to even out beneath her feet.

Lena's response is immediate, her fingers flying over the screen in a blur of movement: _Wouldn't miss it for the world :D_

Before she can set the phone down it buzzes once more, the vibrations climbing the length of her arm, a tingle that hits her like lightning. She opens the notification without hesitation.

 _p.s. omg i want to meet wallace!_

The words are followed by what can only be described as emoji vomit, the sheer number of which that Kara's managed to cram into the message boggles the mind.

Sliding into the cool sheets covering her bed, all she feels is warmth. Imagining Kara in her apartment across town, a dopey grin on her face has Lena's own smile pulling at her cheeks, a breathy chuckle escaping her lips. There's a part of her that aches a bit at the absence, at the miles keeping her from seeing the smile for herself.

In spite of it, she feels the warmth of it all the same, and even if it is a little less bright than the original, she feels the echo of it in her own.

Setting the phone on her nightstand, she reaches up to turn off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness, save for the oblong rectangle of midnight blue against the ubiquitous inky shadows where the obscured moonlight filters in through the sheer curtains hanging across the window.

Sleep is almost instantaneous. Her eyelids sink quickly closed, and her breath slows, changes, evens out. The ghost of a smile still haunts the corners of her mouth.

There's a soft _whoosh_ on the wind, a faint flutter outside the window, and a shadow of a caped figure cuts across the square of light on the floor. It's gone as promptly as it came, but Lena slips away from consciousness too quickly to notice it was ever there in the first place.

* * *

 _Bzzzzz._

Her cell phone blinks to life a few feet away, and Lena is quick to grin, the familiar pull of the muscles in her cheek an almost Pavlovian response to the sound of a text notification. She and Kara have been texting all morning, her phone buzzing to life at regular intervals. They've talked of nothing. They've talked of everything.

Turning from her computer, she snatches the phone from the corner of her desk and pulls up the latest message. Her grin falters. Kara can't get away for their standing lunch, it seems. She's in a frenzy, trying to write her article.

Disappointment flitters in Lena's periphery like a phantom, ethereal and vague, but before it can take form, before it can grow flesh or sprout claws with which to dig into her skin, she turns back to her computer and pulls up her browser, all hard focus and soft smirk.

Thirty minutes later her cell phone comes alive again, but instead of the familiar _bzzzz,_ it rings quietly, skittering insistently along the top of her desk. When the name "Kara Danvers" splashes across the screen in large letters, Lena's grin is instantaneous, smug, and it echoes in her voice when she answers.

"Oh my god, Lena," Kara starts, her words indistinct, as if she's speaking around a bite of food. "You sent me potstickers?! You- you are the most amazing-" her words stop suddenly, transforming by increments into a muffled moan, the sound of a woman clearly unable to stop herself from taking another nibble.

Lena's laughter sparkles along her desk, shimmers across the office walls like jewels in the midday sun. "Even reporters need their energy," she says, a smile in her voice. "Thought you might need a little help getting through your story, whatever it is."

There's a pause followed by an audible swallow, and when Kara speaks again her tone is more subdued. "You remember the missing girl I told you about last week? The one whose mom came to the office?"

"Of course," Lena responds, her eyes narrowing at the turn in the conversation.

"I found her, Lena. We found her. And so many more."

The line is silent for a moment before Lena mutters, "Oh my god, Kara…," her voice trailing off just as quickly, her mind struggling with the magnitude of Kara's admission.

More muffled sounds make their way through the speaker, and when Kara continues, her words are halting, pausing to chew. "I've got to get this written today to go to print, so I'll be working late. But as _soon_ as I can I want to tell you all about it."

Lena doesn't think she's imagining the note of longing in Kara's voice. It's a silken thing, and it insinuates itself deep into her chest, wrapping around her lungs, caressing her heart.

She's heard it often enough in her own to know the signs.

"I can't wait," Lena says. She sees movement out of the corner of her eye - Jess appears in the doorway. Holding up a finger, Lena sighs into the phone, her voice soft, "Look, I've got to go, I've got some people waiting outside the office for a meeting." The regret is palpable, a solid thing between them, and she makes no effort to hide it. There's an answering sigh on the line, an echo of her own, and her heart clenches infinitesimally at the sound. "Don't work too hard, Kara."

A quiet chuckle sounds in her ear. "Like you have room to talk."

They disconnect, and with a nod to Jess, she stands up, moves around her desk and walks to greet the visitors being ushered into her office wearing a smile more genuine than any she's worn this week.

* * *

Her hand hovers lightly above the keys, and her eyes scan the screen swiftly. A steady stream of words tumble from her lips, pretty things, polished and poised and waiting for their debut.

Garish lights flash across the TV in her periphery, a discordant note signaling the switch to the sports segment of the nightly news. Not that she's paying it any mind. It's background noise, a habit she can't seem to shake loose. The added voices, the stray musical interludes, they all combine to make the apartment feel a little less empty, to make her feel a little less alone here.

It's not much, but it helps.

Settled into the corner of her couch with her legs stretched out before her, the dark cotton of her pajamas a stark contrast to the warm camel color of the cushions, she's finally comfortable. Her laptop sits heavily atop her legs, her speech outline up on the screen, its light far brighter than the lamps dotting the perimeter of the room.

She's been at it all night, obsessively going over the details, the need to have everything finalized and perfect for tomorrow's charity event forefront in her mind. It's a familiar routine, a skill she's been honing since her college days. If she squints hard enough the line between final exam and hosting a public event blurs - sure, there are different facts to memorize, different lines to learn, but the frenzied feeling is the same.

The need for success is the same, too. She has a reputation for being an accomplished public speaker, and while she enjoys the appearance of ease she's fostered throughout the years, the truth is it comes down to hours and hours of anxious practice.

 _Bzzzz._

The phone vibrates against her leg, and she reaches into the pocket of her pajamas automatically to retrieve it, although she waits until she finishes the line of text she's highlighted with her cursor before tearing her eyes away and checking it out.

It's Kara. Of course it's Kara.

 _i'm about 95% sure you're still working but check your email_

Her curiosity piqued, Lena clicks away from her speech and opens her email program. Sure enough, there's a new email from Kara Danvers, the subject " **Unofficial Draft** " in bold letters at the top of the queue. The body of the message is succinct: " _Snapper might still change some things, but I wanted you to be the first to read it."_

She doesn't hesitate.

And she doesn't dwell on why that is, either.

Taking a sip of water from the glass on the nearby coffee table, Lena gets comfortable, pulling her knees up closer to her chest and resituating the computer in her lap, her speech forgotten. As she begins to read the attached file, her hand reaches up to play idly with her hair, a dark strand wrapping around and around and around her outstretched fingers as her eyes fly across the text on the screen.

With each passing minute, her hand slows. And then it stills altogether, raven strands slipping from her fingers unnoticed.

It begins with a mother, asking for help.

It begins with a reporter, asking too many questions.

From there the story of the kidnappings, the slavery ring, the daring rescue, it all unfolds in hard-hitting prose, juxtaposing emotional accounts from victims describing their ordeal with Supergirl's heroics, everything in stark, technicolor detail. She reads it all with wide eyes, her hand sliding to cover her mouth.

Some passages she reads and rereads, her jaw falling open.

Moving her hand, running her fingers wildly through her hair, she calls Kara as soon as she's done.

Kara answers on the first ring. "What'd you think?" Kara asks anxiously.

"Kara...I...I don't know what to say," she answers truthfully, her mind still struggling to parse the details, to translate them to reality. "It's brilliant. And heart-wrenching. And...all of this is true? You...you uncovered this?" Wonder suffuses her words. It's probably the same tone she'd have if she found out Kara could time travel. Equally surreal, equally inconceivable.

Kara stammers, unable to find the words. Or rather she finds _all_ the words, flittering between every one of them, unable to settle on the particular one she wants. The phone jostles against her cheek, and Lena thinks she might be climbing the stairs to her apartment. When Kara diverts, mentions Supergirl, Lena speaks up.

"Don't get me wrong, Kara. Supergirl certainly is a hero, and the two of you clearly make a formidable team," Lena begins, her voice reverent, firm. "But don't downplay your own role. You are every bit a hero, too. You followed your instincts, you helped someone that no one else would help." Kara falls quiet on the line. Lena continues, her voice softening. "It's down to you that all of these people are safe."

"It was the right thing to do," Kara says quietly. The sound of a door closing travels through the phone - Kara is home. "You still working?" Kara asks.

A heavy sigh passes her lips. "Yeah, trying to make sure everything's ready for tomorrow night."

Kara yawns in her ear, loud and uninhibited. "It'll be perfect," she assures, "don't worry." And she means it.

It's contagious. Lena finds herself pulled into a yawn as well, and when she regains control she laughs quietly. "That's your fault, you're a bad influence."

There's an answering laugh on the line, but the voice is tired. "Shush." When a rustling noise fills the speaker, Lena imagines Kara in her apartment across town, kicking off her shoes, shedding her coat, stumbling toward her bedroom with the phone cradled between her shoulder and her ear, a sleepy smile on her face. Her heart aches at the picture of domesticity she's conjured, and something flutters in her throat.

"Go to bed, Kara." Her voice is lace, delicate, fragile.

"Yes, ma'am. Goodnight, Lena."

"Goodnight," she says on a whisper.

Long after the line falls silent she stares at the phone in her hand, the screen dark, the face reflecting back at her familiar and yet...something's changed, something's shifted ever so slightly, a realignment on a cellular level, and she starts to smile even as a part of her fills with dread, names this for what it is.

After a long moment her fingers spring into action, pulling up her text messages and finding Kara's name, but as she goes to respond, as she starts to shout into the void, she remembers the yawn, the sleepy satisfaction in Kara's voice.

 _Leave it be, Lena._

With a shake of her head, she bites her lower lip and slips the phone back into her pocket. Switching back to her speech, she settles herself deeper into the couch and reads it again from the top, redoubling her efforts, a valiant attempt to focus.

 _Tomorrow needs to be perfect._

* * *

"That is _not_ acceptable, Kevin." Lena's breath escapes in what might loosely be construed as a laugh, but it lacks any trace of lightness, any trace of joviality. It's a shadowy thing, dark and dangerous.

"My staff-," she starts, but she doesn't get to finish, the voice on the other end running ram shod over her. Her words perch on the tip of her tongue, bitter and sharp. She thinks if he were here, if he were standing before her now, how they'd fly like poisoned darts from her lips, find their mark in the sickly white jowls of his neck. _God, how satisfying._

Unable to sit still, she moves around her desk, pacing back and forth in the open space in front, one foot in front of the other. Over and over again, she stalks like a tiger prowling, her muscles bunching, itching for action. Claws out, teeth gleaming in the strong midday light streaming through the windows along the wall, Lena Luthor is ready for the fight.

 _It'll be a cold day in hell before the board shortchanges my employees so they can make a few extra bucks,_ she thinks to herself. _Her_ staff. _Her_ people. The ones who count on her to have their backs.

It's a job she takes seriously.

But his next words halt her movements, and she comes to a stop facing her office door, one hand on her hip, her spine straight as hardened steel. When she speaks again, her words lack any trace of her earlier civility. Instead, her voice is sharp and dangerous, a weapon intimately wielded. "No, call a board meeting if you must. But it won't-" Her nostrils flare as she's cut off once more, the muscles in her jaw aching with tension, the tendrils snaking behind her eyes, up to her temples, needles of pain blooming along their tracks.

And then she stills.

And Lena smiles, alone in her office. It's a terrifying thing, her lips curled back, her teeth bared. The feral smile of a predator who knows the hunt is on. "Oh, I assure you, Kevin," she snarls, her voice pitched low. "I'm looking forward to it."

Pulling the phone away from her ear, she ends the call, vaguely missing the days of ubiquitous landlines, where one could slam a phone back into its cradle with crashing finality at the end of a call, a cathartic move if there ever was one.

"Ahem." A throat clears behind her, and the suddenness of it sends a trill of panic through Lena's system, her heart thrumming wildly against her ribs. A shock of red and blue slide into focus as she whirls around, waves of amber fluttering in the open doorway of the balcony.

"I'm sorry," Supergirl starts, her hands raised in apology as she lingers in the door, contrition etched in the lines of her face. "I didn't mean to startle you...or to interrupt," she adds with a nod to the phone held loosely in Lena's hand.

In her place halfway between the desk and the door, Lena stands unmoving, her features frozen in surprise as she stares at the unexpected visitor on her balcony, backlit against the daylight, sun playing through the loose curls framing her face, blurring her edges. She's striking, and Lena stares, immobile.

"I can come back if this is a bad time," Supergirl offers from the doorway, her tone a little less sure, a little more quiet. Her voice rises slightly at the end as if in question, and Lena doesn't think she's imagining the disappointment lacing the words.

Shaking her head, clearing all thoughts of before and wiping the slate clean, Lena offers her guest a private smile. "Of course not, Supergirl. You're always welcome." Her words have a visible effect, blue-clad shoulders dropping slightly, the tension she didn't realize was there relaxing visibly as Supergirl takes a tentative step into her office. It's something Lena isn't used to - Supergirl is a figure of decisiveness, of blockbuster action and comic book heroics, and the carefulness, the timidity coloring her movements in the last few moments stick out as aberrations. Always observing, always watching, she notes them and wonders at them before cataloging them and filing them away for future scrutiny.

"Are you alright?" It's an innocuous question on its face, but there's a personal nature to it that feels like new territory between them, and it leaves Lena's lips before she can rethink the play.

Across the way, Supergirl cocks her head in confusion, the question seemingly out of context, and Lena moves to her desk to clarify, reaching forward and grabbing the latest edition of CatCo magazine where it lies open near her computer. It slides in her fingers as she flips it closed, and its glossy cover comes into view: the words "Slaver's Moon" appear in small, understated print, leaving more room for James Olsen's haunting photograph to tell its own story, depicting Izzy Williams, her face smudged, her blonde hair dirtied and disheveled, smiling broadly as she's engulfed in an emotional hug by her mother.

"You've been busy this week," Lena says by way of explanation as Supergirl's eyes zero in on the magazine in her outstretched hand. "Broke up an interplanetary slave trade, saved a lot of people, reunited a mother and her daughter..." They rattle off her tongue, almost mundane, and _god_ it sounds farcical, impossible even, like the world's most ridiculous to-do list. Supergirl remains quiet, her eyes still focused on the cover photo, and Lena wonders is it modesty that keeps her silent? Humility?

Or is it memory, perhaps?

Whatever the reason, Lena takes a moment to let her eyes look across long limbs held tightly, fingers curled protectively into palms. Observing. Analyzing. "It must take its toll," she continues, and although her voice is quiet, her tone soft, the words ricochet like a shot against the hard surfaces between them.

"Did they hurt you?" she whispers, her voice barely audible as she searches Supergirl's face, unable to find any clues on her body. It's another question blurring the line, bold and direct in spite of its muted delivery.

Blue eyes snap to hers with inhuman speed, but Lena returns the scrutiny with unwavering resolve, her brow furrowed in concern.

"I...it's not important," Supergirl starts, looking away, looking down, her feet shuffling as she moves further into the office, avoiding the focus on herself with careful self-deprecation. But Lena doesn't take the bait. When Supergirl lifts her head again, she finds Lena's eyes on her still, her eyebrows raised, unperturbed and waiting. With a sigh, Supergirl amends her answer, "I'm OK, really," she promises, a soft smile playing at the corners of her lips. "It was the right thing to do." She turns and paces a little further into Lena's office, her back to the windows, her progress marked by the soft swish of her cape against her legs.

Lena stills in her place beside the desk, her eyes narrowing as the words echo familiarly in her ears, the thread of a conversation she's had before. For reasons unknown, in her veins her pulse picks up its pace, the blood beginning to hum susurrant in her ears.

When she speaks, her words are gossamer, a fragile whisper barely audible even to herself, "Doesn't mean it was easy."

Supergirl hears her. _Of course, she does._

Across the room, Supergirl pauses in her steps and turns to face Lena, her cape swinging loosely in her wake, and when she stills it sways lightly, the red vivid against the delicate white petals just beyond reach along the coffee table. For a moment her eyes flicker down to Lena's chest, to her heart, before climbing back up to search her face.

Although she stands there bigger than life in her hallmark blue and red, a uniform that symbolizes strength and hope for a whole city, Supergirl's eyes are wide, and her fingers tug at the edge of her sleeves where they hang low and brush against her palms, betraying a vulnerability most wouldn't believe existed.

Deja vu barrels into Lena with the force of a locomotive, tipping her senses off balance, dizzying and confusing, and she unconsciously bites her lip, pondering.

Tracking the movement with her eyes, Supergirl takes a deep breath, carefully flexing her fingers against her thigh before clearing her throat and changing the subject.

"So I hear you're throwing a party?" Her voice is light when she speaks now, almost joking, but there's a lingering tentativeness in its notes that rings discordantly in Lena's ears.

Lena leans back against her desk, bolstering herself with her arms, a picture of carefully crafted ease. With a smirk, she responds to the query, "Something like that."

There's an answering twitch at the corner of Supergirl's mouth at what they both know to be a gross understatement. "It's a risk, you know, such a public event," Supergirl continues as she slowly strolls back towards Lena's place at the desk. "You already know you're a target, and hosting an event is an attractive opportunity for anyone out there who may wish you harm. Not only would they get to you, but it's an attractive chance to make a statement on a grand scale."

Her tone isn't angry, it isn't chiding or fretful or any of the things it could have been. Not that it matters. Lena bristles at the words all the same, feeling defensiveness swirl around her back like storm clouds. Tingles of electricity spark along her limbs, and lightning gathers on her tongue.

But Supergirl must see the steel setting in her jaw, the thunderheads darkening her brow because she wastes no time in stepping closer, putting her hand up between them in a placating gesture before Lena has a chance to strike. The words tumbling out of her lips are fervent. "I'm not here to stop you, Ms. Luthor."

Lena's lungs deflate like a dying wind, the sparks coursing down to her fingertips begin to sizzle and still, and the storm clouding her features dissipates.

"I think your aims are amazing. And, frankly," Supergirl says, a smirk beginning to form on her face, "I know you're going to do what you want anyway - you're _kind_ of hard-headed."

A bark of laughter escapes Lena's lips, genuine and unexpected, and the smile reflecting back at her from the Girl of Steel is playful, comfortable, the earlier tentativeness all but gone.

"I just wanted to talk logistics," Supergirl continues, pacing slowly through the office, turning back to Lena from time to time as she speaks. "I intended to do this days ago, but...like you said-" the ghost of a smile crosses her lips, "-I've been a little busy." She wets her lips, coming to a stop a few feet from Lena, arms crossed, eyes intent, the picture of focus. "What precautions are you taking for tonight?"

Nodding her head in understanding, Lena begins running through the arrangements she's painstakingly made over the past few weeks, a mere fraction of the flurry of phone calls and meetings and emails she's exchanged in preparation. "I'll have quadruple the security personnel on-hand tonight, all thoroughly vetted and vouched for by trusted employees."

As she speaks, she feels the familiar mantle of CEO settling over her, and she welcomes it - the way her voice firms, her words imbued with unquestionable confidence. The way her back straightens. But in the moment, with Supergirl standing at parade rest across from her, she feels less like a CEO and more like a general, like the two of them should be standing in some darkened room beneath a single overhead lamp, its bare bulb humming electric into the encroaching cloud of cigar smoke as they plot away, two generals huddling over a battlefield map, analyzing troop positions and strategizing for an upcoming skirmish.

This esprit de corps delights her, and she settles against the desk as she continues to lay out her plan, her feet crossed primly at her ankles.

"My team will be discrete but visible. Well,-" she stops, a cheshire grin pulling at her cheeks, "-most of them. There'll be some who you'll never know are there."

"And," Lena adds, keeping her voice even, "I'd hoped you'd be there, too."

Although Supergirl's lips had been pressed firmly together, flattened into a line while she listened intently, they quickly soften at the admission, pulling into a smirk. "Of course I'll be there," she assures, nodding her head quickly as if in emphasis, as if the gesture could assuage any apprehension there might be about her intentions. "But I'll monitor things from a distance. I don't want to pull any attention from your focus tonight. If all goes well, you'll never even know I'm there," she offers, and there's a laugh, soft and self-deprecating.

But there's a note to it Lena can't identify, a minor chord in a major melody. It echoes in her ears long after the other notes have fallen silent. A movement, small but noticeable, catches her eye - Supergirl is fidgeting again, her fingertips digging into her biceps where her arms cross, her lips pulled into a tight line once more.

"Besides," Supergirl continues, her eyes catching and holding Lena's. "I'm pretty sure Kara Danvers would kill me if anything happened to you on my watch."

And it's Lena's turn to squirm. Her cheeks warm in an instant at the sentiment, as if she's spent the afternoon basking in the sun rather than tucked away in the office, and she realizes it must be visible, the blush, when Supergirl's eyes waver from hers, slide downward ever so slowly while her lips twitch. It only takes a moment before Supergirl disconnects entirely, staring at her own boots, her smile far fuller now, like she's enjoying some sort of private joke.

Lena watches her a moment, and the silence stretches between them undisturbed. Silence exists on a spectrum, a dizzying array of types and qualities. But this one that sits between Lena Luthor and Supergirl isn't the kind that separates, the kind that invites division. On the contrary, the quiet pulls them together, solidifies their partnership in ways words cannot hope to.

Lena's cheeks have cooled by the time Supergirl looks up again, apologies in her eyes as she says, "'I've gotta go." Her arms unlock, sleek blue sliding down to rest loosely at her sides, her cape tickling along the back of her forearms where they dangle. "The mayor has a press event, and he requested a photo-op to bolster his campaign." Blowing out a lung-full of air, running a hand absently through the waves around her shoulders, it strikes Lena again how young, how human she is, this Girl of Steel. She carries the weight of the world - _the weight of many worlds_ \- settled atop her broad shoulders like a modern Atlas, but beneath it all, when the public has turned away, safely tucked in their beds, when the media has turned off the lights, when the bad guys have retreated to the safety of their lairs, this figure they've asked the world of...she's just a girl.

Rolling her shoulders and stepping away, her footsteps soft, unobtrusive in the large space, Supergirl looks back at her, eyebrows raised. "I'll see you tonight." It's not quite a question, not quite a statement.

But Lena understands it all the same. She nods decisively, one general to another.

One girl to another.

With a slight creak as her boots shift, her legs bent at the knee, Supergirl lifts gracefully from the balcony and flies out over National City. Lena watches her go, tracks her movement through the air as best she can, but the sun is strong today, and in the crowded labyrinth of downtown, its towering sentinels of polished glass and gleaming steel vying for attention, the glare is harsh.

She squints against the sun, but she loses Supergirl shortly in the shimmering skyline.

* * *

 _This is it. This is how I die._

It's the only concrete thought she can muster as he leans in, as the swirling cloud of cologne overtakes her, and she can only hope it's not immediately evident to anyone lingering nearby that she's holding her breath. As he pulls away, the fashionable stubble of his beard scratches irritatingly against her cheek, and Lena quickly schools her face into the appropriate mask, her smile bright, dazzling even, the picture of the gracious hostess.

She takes her leave as politely as she can. "I am so pleased you could make it! I've got to go do a thing-" she waves her hand, indicating the paper gripped tightly in her fingers, bullet points for her upcoming speech, "-but please be sure to check out the East Hall in a bit. I think you'll enjoy it." His answering smile is toothy but pleased, and a string of benign pleasantries follows Lena as she turns and moves through the room, gliding through the crowd with practiced ease.

It's a dance, her confident footsteps setting the tempo, the low murmur of voices, the tinkling of glassware the melodic backdrop. As she wends through the room, twirling wide around waiters bearing overloaded drink trays, casting a wave here, a smile there, a quick touch on a familiar shoulder in hurried greeting as she passes by, her steps are effortless, graceful. The movements of someone who knows the routine by heart.

Growing up a Luthor is good for some things.

But for all her circuits through the room, greasing palms and kissing cheeks, there's one guest she has yet to see. Glancing at her watch - again - her heart sinks a little. _Where is she?_

Kara had texted more than half an hour ago, all apologies, the indication being that she was running late. Lena hadn't even had a chance to respond, hadn't had a chance to get an ETA. Another crisis had arisen, pulling her attention away. Crisis is a broad term tonight, apparently, the one in question centering on a minor panic amongst the caterers: a tray of quiche fell during transit, and as a result, the order was shorter than contracted.

It's just the latest fire in need of fighting. Flitting frantically from one dilemma to another since she arrived a few hours ago to personally oversee the set-up, it feels like that's all she's done. Sure, she could have left it to an assistant, these last minute things. She could have done it all along as well, she supposes, letting Jess or Hector or someone else handle the phone calls and emails and scheduling invitations. But this is a personal project. It has to be perfect.

 _If you want it done right, do it yourself._

And so, shortly after Supergirl had made her exit from L-Corp this afternoon, Lena did the same, hurrying across town to make her hair appointment, stopping at the apartment for a quick change, and then on to the venue.

A self-satisfied grin flickers across her face when she thinks about how her hair turned out tonight. Let down in a cascade of gentle waves and brushed curls, falling delicately around her face, it's soft and sexy and elegant all in one, somehow simultaneously flawless yet seemingly effortless. Lena's inclined to call her hairdresser a magician. Whatever the source of her powers, she loves it.

Her eyes drop to her watch once more before they dart up and away, casting about the room in a last ditch effort, but there's still no Kara in sight. Tilting her head back, Lena empties her glass of the last few drops of champagne, placing the empty flute carefully on a waiter's tray before taking a step forward.

It's time.

As she mounts the steps to the small dais provided for just this moment, ever mindful of the long hem on her tailored suit - the last thing she needs is to face plant right now - a murmur works its way through the crowd before they begin to clap politely.

Men and women in their expensive cocktail attire, sipping wine, champagne. Waiting. Watching.

Judging.

Some are here to support a worthy cause. Some are here because they never decline a party invitation, a chance to be seen. But others - others are here because they wanted to look at the last free Luthor, vultures circling the carrion, watching with hungry eyes.

Oh, she sees them. And she'll remember them.

When the applause tapers off, Lena begins, letting her gaze dance from one face to another in the crowd. "Thank you for joining us tonight, and thank you to the National City Observatory for allowing us to run amok in their beautiful halls." She waits while another small round of applause fills the Grand Hall's rotunda, echoing brightly off the beautiful art deco tiled floors, ricocheting again and again off the walls like muted thunder.

After a moment, she begins again. "Just a little bookkeeping to start us off, bear with me," she says around a smile. "The observatory's pride and joy, the large refracting telescope is open for viewing in the West Hall, just beyond their award-winning solar exhibit. Staff have also set up a number of smaller telescopes on the balcony along the northern end of the building for your viewing pleasure tonight, and the observatory has a few docents posted nearby to answer any questions you may have."

A murmur breaks out in the crowd, the overall tone seemingly pleased, and Lena catches a few heads turning, looking this way and that as if making plans on where to go first. A photographer to the side of the stage snaps a photo and then another, the flash of his camera a minor distraction in her periphery.

"As I am sure you've noticed by now that we have a number of guests tonight who are a little... _smaller_ in stature than normal," she continues, a smile coloring her tone. The laughter that returns to her is delightful, pockets of chuckles climbing toward the high ceiling, echoing back and forth across the space.

Her hands loosen on the podium as the reception in the room thaws. "No, you're not imagining things. Tonight we have some special guests: students from schools all over National City, along with their chaperones, of course." While some of the older kids are spread throughout the room, many of the younger ones are standing up front, just beneath the stage, girls with grins on their faces, hope and wonder like starlight in their eyes. Lena looks at them as she speaks, indulgent, fully aware that her own face mirrors their wonder.

By now, most of the kids have realized that they're in the spotlight, that hundreds of sets of eyes have sought them out, and they sit up taller in their uniform polos and pressed khakis. A few along the right side, however, pay no mind. Instead, after elbowing friends on either side of them, as a unit they look upward, staring in hushed awe at the mechanical model of the solar system suspended high above their heads in the rotunda, gears moving the planets along in perfect imitation of their actual orbit.

Lena doesn't blame them, casting her eyes upward herself. The model really is quite spectacular.

Pulling her gaze back to earth, she returns her attention to the adults in the room, the ones who have paid for the privilege of being here tonight.

"You may also have noticed a few women in rather fashionable white lab coats wandering around tonight. We have a number of interactive science experiments set up in the East Hall, just through the doors there," she says, indicating the direction with an outstretched hand. "Led by women of distinction in National City - scientists, teachers, professors, leaders in their field from both the private sector and the public - these activities are intended for the young _and_ the young at heart."

Another wave of murmurs crests in the crowd, more heads turning in the direction of the hall, as if they could see the experiments through the grand double doors flanking the rotunda. When they turn back to her, the smiles are a touch less rigid, the eyes a little brighter, and Lena breathes a little more easily.

Glancing down, one little girl, in particular, is watching her with a grin the size of California on her face. Lena can see the moment she realizes that Lena is, in fact, looking directly at her - a small hand appears, and the girl waves at her excitedly from the crowd.

In the middle of a speech, in the middle of a crowded room, dressed to the nines amidst the National City elite, Lena Luthor melts. Pausing in her speech, her nose crinkles as she smiles, and raising her hand from the podium, she sends the girl a wave of her own, long fingers curling over her palm.

Her smallest fan's eyes light up, deep brown and sparkling with excitement.

With a deep breath, Lena lifts her gaze, ready to settle into her well-practiced speech properly, the prepared bullet points beneath her palm already seeming unnecessary, but her breath catches in her throat when she zeroes in on Kara, newly arrived, flushed and smiling as she moves to a free spot along the far wall.

The answering warmth in her chest is automatic, as is the smile forming on her face, the muscles pulling easily, long-since accustomed to this particular smile, the one she reserves for Kara.

Stepping back from the podium so she can move freely, Lena begins. The speech is succinct, just as she promised the crowd, but energetic as well, focusing on the ways in which one's life passion often begins in childhood, rarely planned, often messy, but wholly deserving of support.

At one point, she dips into her own childhood to pull out a story to use as an illustration, highlighting the refuge science offered for her personally when there was turmoil at home. It's sufficiently vague, any lurid details easily skirted or glossed over, but, nevertheless, the vultures take flight once more, circling amongst the planets overhead, eyes hungry, watching raptly and waiting for the merest hint of a tasty morsel.

She leaves them waiting, moving to the conclusion of her speech with a smirk.

"It is my absolute pleasure to announce that L-Corp is establishing a college scholarship program to be awarded to five young women in National City interested in pursuing degrees in STEM fields. Everyone deserves the chance to follow their passions." The applause thunders in the Grand Hall, and when the event photographer steps close again, lightning flashes into the dome high overhead illuminating the planets suspended above in glimpses and flickers. The accompanying murmurs are far louder this time, and Lena doesn't bother waiting for them to subside.

"I've kept you long enough. Please enjoy everything the National City Observatory has to offer - the interactive experiments, the telescopes, all of it - help yourself to the food set up in each wing of the building, and thank you again for coming out tonight to support such a worthy cause. Thank you!"

When she descends from the dais, a quiet sigh of relief passes her lips, one of tonight's major hurdles in the books. A few attendees move closer to shake her hand, to kiss her cheek, congratulating her on her words, her deeds. She thanks them politely, her smile broad, immaculate. Their honeyed words glide across her ears.

However, her eyes balk at the delay, flitting away in undisciplined rebellion from her guests with embarrassing frequency to the wall where she last saw Kara, her view irritatingly obstructed by a veritable sea of moving people.

Just because she can't see Kara doesn't mean she stops looking, though.

Excusing herself with a smile and a self-deprecating joke after a few moments, Lena moves at last, her steps deliberate, her path calculated. The crowd is slowly thinning, the attendees off to their next destinations, whether it's the buffet tables or star-gazing or the experiments or whatever. She finds that, at the moment, she doesn't much care what they do so long as they get out of her way.

Stalking across the hall in her tailored suit and heels, she cuts an impressive figure, fighting the current of bodies with aplomb, never faltering, never struggling, just another dance step learned long ago and executed with unparalleled ease.

Or at least that is until she finally emerges on the other side of the crowd, appearing a few feet from where Kara stands near the wall, looking utterly stunning in a vaguely vintage-inspired cocktail dress the color of emeralds, a skirt ending flirtily around her knees, her arms left invitingly bare.

It's no wonder Lena's steps falter, really. She's only human. After nearly tripping over her own feet like a novice, she manages to right herself, finding her rhythm once more. Pulling her gaze reluctantly from Kara's biceps, Lena straightens and closes the distance between them in two short paces, wrapping her arms around Kara's shoulders without hesitation.

They haven't seen each other in almost a week, and the ache that's settled deep in her bones during the absence has been hard for Lena to ignore, like a seam of ice growing beneath her exterior, splintering into her veins, frost tracing delicate patterns in her wake like footsteps.

Over the last few days, the return to texting has helped, her limbs thawing inch by inch, but an embrace? With Lena's arms wrapped tightly around Kara's shoulders and Kara's arms strong against her back, it feels more like immolation. Instead of ice, there's fire flickering in her veins, a flame shared between the two of them, leaping and growing, feeding on the proximity.

She'd like to attribute the warmth to the glass of champagne making its way through her system, or the lingering effects of the stage lights, but in the end, neither holds up to scrutiny.

In the end, she decides she doesn't care.

Closing her eyes, her lips graze Kara's cheek, and she breathes in shakily, a bouquet of citrus tickling her nose, sweet and intoxicating.

"You look beautiful, Kara," she says quietly, her breath warm along the shell of Kara's ear. That's what she says, but it's still not quite right. Gorgeous. Stunning. Heartstopping. None of the words that come to mind seem an adequate description - they all fall short in one way or another. Some things aren't meant to be reduced to a word.

There's a pull at her cheek. Kara's smiling, she imagines, and her cheeks tighten in response, as if it's contagious.

Thinking to pull away, Lena lets her hands fall, sliding softly away from the silken dress at her shoulders, down Kara's back as she prepares to take a step. But all movement ceases when she realizes there's no fabric beneath her outstretched fingers: only skin, smooth and warm - impossibly warm. Her eyes flash open, her breath catching hopelessly in her throat.

Kara shivers in her arms, a field of goosebumps rising to meet Lena's fingertips where they linger along the curve of Kara's lower back.

For a moment Lena wants to press. Wants to pull. Wants to curl into the fire until she loses all sense of where she begins or ends.

But there's a thudding against her ribcage, a wild thing with wings, and its insistence brings her back to earth. When she steps away to a more socially acceptable distance, the air thick between them, she's surprised to find that her heart is relatively steady in her chest.

The wayward beat wasn't her own.

Kara looks at her, a blush creeping along her cheek, and Lena unconsciously begins to bite at her own lip. To her amusement, Kara's eyes flicker down to her mouth and then continue further, taking in the rest of her outfit now that she's not on stage at the far end of the room.

Heat traces across her skin, electric and precise as Kara's eyes follow the edge of her blue cowl neck blouse, cut low beneath her blazer, and when they find the delicate pendant sitting lightly against her chest, the metal warms beneath the gaze.

The blush blooming on Lena's cheeks hardly surprises her. Under Kara's scrutiny, she feels far warmer than she ever did under the strong lights on the stage behind her with hundreds of people watching her every move.

Kara's jaw begins to work, up and down, up and down, as if she's trying to talk, but the only sounds she manages to make are unintelligible. It isn't until she shakes her head, dragging her eyes back to Lena's that the words begin to take shape.

Sort of.

"Wow...you look...I mean...wow." Kara blinks furiously, and the sight is enough to make Lena chuckle, low and throaty.

"Did I say wow already?" Kara says around a smile, her eyes comically wide, and she adjusts her glasses. Not that they needed adjusting.

With another shake of her head, Kara resets, her face transforming into a more solemn visage. "Hey, I am so sorry I nearly missed your big moment! I was on my way and got...interrupted." A trace of...something flashes in her eyes, but before Lena can ask, before she can figure it out, Kara's off again, telling her how great the speech was, telling her about the nearby conversations and asides she'd been privy to from her spot in the crowd.

A smile, soft and private, plays at her lips, and she replies, "I-"

"Lena!" a voice booms behind her, cutting her off, and while annoyance flickers across her features at the interruption, she banishes it before anyone can see it, the hostess mask slipping into place in the blink of an eye. Across from her Kara quiets, leaning to the side slightly to get a look at the approaching guests.

Plastering a wide but believable grin on her face ( _god her mother would be proud of the show she's putting on)_ , Lena turns, spying an older man moving toward her, his hair silvery, his fashion a little out of date, and an expectant smile on his face.

Her smile relaxes instantly into something more genuine. When he nears, he leans down to kiss her cheek, and she steadies herself with a hand on his arm until he pulls away. Beside her, Kara looks a little uncomfortable, a nervous smile on her face, her hand reflexively reaching to fiddle with her glasses again as if she considering disappearing. It's her most obvious tell. Before Kara can move away, however, Lena reaches out, her hand settling on Kara's back again.

While Kara looks at her in surprise, Lena turns her attention back to the newly arrived guest. "Matthew! I am so, so pleased you could make it!"

"How's Rachel? I heard about the relapse," she continues, her eyebrows knitting, her face transforming fluidly into genuine concern.

Her fingers trace shapes onto Kara's skin, nothing and everything, and Kara alternates between shivering and stilling beneath her hand.

"Oh, she's going to be just fine. You know she won't let a little thing like that keep her down." His voice softens a little, and the hint of pride running beneath his words is hard to miss.

"I'm glad to hear it. The world needs her on her feet to keep you in line. Can't have you terrorizing National City without adult supervision," she jokes. He barks with laughter before kissing her cheek anew, promising to tell his wife what Lena said.

When he moves away, Kara turns, sliding out of Lena's grip. "You are...frighteningly good at this," she says, her mouth agape in wonder.

Inclining her head, Lena answers, her voice low, "Well, when you grow up a Luthor, you learn how to host a party alongside the training in villainy." Kara looks at her disbelieving, and with a wink Lena adds, "It's important to be well-rounded."

When Kara's stomach rumbles noisily, Lena laughs and rolls her eyes. "Come on. What kind of hostess would I be if I let you go hungry?" Crossing into the West Hall, Lena steers them toward the long line of tables set against the back wall, where gleaming trays are arranged atop impeccable white linens, piled high with a surprising variety of artfully arranged finger foods.

Kara fills a plate with no shame and no hesitation, her face a mix of focus and delight as the extra space disappears from view while Lena greets another pair of guests nearby.

When Lena manages to extricate herself, all too-wide smiles and thank you's, she finds Kara happily shoveling steak bites into her mouth. Leaning in, Lena slowly angles her body toward Kara, whose eyes widen, whose movement stills at the proximity. Letting her eyes drop, Lena steals a quiche off the side of the plate, and Kara's eyes narrow in mock outrage at her daring.

A moment later she steals another with a saucy wink before grabbing a glass of champagne from a nearby tray.

"I take it the buffet meets your approval then?" she asks before taking another bite.

"Mmmm," is all Kara manages in response, her mouth full of food, but her eyes crinkle with a smile.

And so they stand together on the sidelines in companionable silence, sharing a plate (or two) of food between them and watching the crowds of people flitter in and out of the crowded hall. It's an amusing mix, honestly, the socialites dressed to the nines in bespoke ensembles, their necks encircled by priceless jewels, and then the herds of kids running circles around and between them, giggling and shouting, pointing this way or that. Lena's smile grows unconsciously as she watches them work their way through the darkened hall, their zeal infectious, their laughter twinkling like stars against the celestial maps dotting the walls.

A _click_ , a _flash_ , the event photographer winds through the room on their heels, capturing the young and not so young guests alike in all manner of poses - talking, laughing, enjoying the exhibits, even elbows up and down the hatch.

When she turns, Kara's eyes are watching her, her face unreadable. Before she can linger on it, before she can sink into it, there's movement beyond Kara's shoulder, a small party making its way into the hall, and when the figure at the center turns in her direction, Lena's lips pull into a triumphant smile.

"Come on, there's someone I want you to meet." Her plate empty, Kara places it on a nearby tray and accompanies Lena across the room.

He sees them as they approach, and when they meet Lena extends her hand, which he shakes warmly, placing his left hand on top in emphasis. "The woman of the hour," he says by way of greeting.

"Mr. Mayor, thank you for coming! I know your schedule right now is rather unforgiving," she says, hand still wrapped in his grip.

He demures, dismissing the pleasantries with a squeeze of his hands. "You know very well I couldn't pass this up. What you're doing here is wonderful, and National City is incredibly lucky to have you here."

A _click,_ a _flash_ , a photo op guaranteed to make tomorrow's paper.

"No place I'd rather be," she says, smiling broadly. Turning, sliding her hand from his grip and placing it at Kara's elbow, she continues, "Where are my manners? May I introduce you?" Addressing the mayor, she says, "Mr. Mayor, this is Kara Danvers. She is the _best_ reporter in National City."

At her side, Kara lets loose a peal of embarrassed laughter, waving her hand in a wide arc through the air as if to dismiss the compliment outright, an awkward and endearing display if ever there was one. Amused, Lena continues, "She's the one responsible for uncovering the slave trade operating in the city this week."

Her amusement grows when Kara reaches up to adjust her glasses yet again, the tell-tale blush beginning to creep up her neck, but before either of them can say anything more, the mayor positively lights up, reaching out to shake Kara's hand overenthusiastically, her arm flailing comically in its wake.

Speaking low, direct, the mayor launches into a simple statement of gratitude, followed by a question Lena, unfortunately, doesn't get to hear in its entirety. A staff member approaches her, getting her attention. Turning back to the mayor and to Kara, who has launched into full-fledged journalist mode, countering the mayor's question with one of her own, Lena offers an apologetic "Excuse me," and steps away to fight yet another fire.

It's an errand that takes only a few minutes, thankfully, another minor irritation billed as a "crisis," but she returns at the far end of the West Hall, a sea of people between her and the pair she left earlier. Beaming hostess smile in place, unflappable and immaculate, she begins the work of crossing the room, returning to the old routine, performing the steps with quiet perfection. From group to group, guest to guest, she wades deeper, sipping on her champagne along the way. In the interlude between each interaction she pauses, her eyes finding Kara still in place next to the mayor. Kara's hands are gesturing wildly, her face animated, and whatever she says it's clearly hilarious - the mayor leans back, his laughter echoing clear across the room.

A jolt of pride, warm and intoxicating, floods through her veins at the sight, but it's followed by a less pleasant pang of jealousy, one that twists and turns hot in her stomach, climbs into her throat. _My Kara._ Shaking her head, she pushes the thought away and moves to another group of guests, her smile once again wide and inviting, the hostess returned.

A throat clears behind her, and when she turns she finds herself face to face with a middle-aged woman in classic Dior, the dregs of some sort of science experiment covering her manicured hands and two students laughing hysterically in her wake.

Unaccountably, the woman is beaming.

"This is the most fun I've had at one of these things in years," she confides, turning quickly to look at the kids lingering in her shadow, her smile growing wider. Without preamble, she reaches into her purse and withdraws a checkbook and pen.

Shoving a check into Lena's hand, she says, "You're doing good work," before turning and walking away, glowing like a comet as she marches through the hall, her twin shadows trailing behind her, giggling all the way.

It's a moment before Lena can drag her eyes away from the retreating spectacle to inspect the check curled into her palm.

 _Holy shit…holy…_

It's a $50,000 check. And judging by the name at the top, it's legit.

She blinks once, twice, reads it again. The elegant script hasn't changed, nor has the sum. Lena feels _good_. Really good. Like...hours in the lab working on a problem good.

Giddiness bubbles up like champagne, the laughter rising in her throat, and it's a herculean effort to school her features into the familiar mask of professionalism or something close at least.

The mask doesn't negate the giddiness, though, doesn't squash it or make it disappear. It's merely trapped, like a hum vibrating in her chest, tickling her ribs, and her heart speeds up to match the frequency. Frankly, it's dizzying.

Taking another sip of her champagne, she surveys the room once more, seeking out the familiar face. When she finds her, Kara is still in conversation with the mayor, although a third party has joined their little group in the meantime.

And then Kara looks up, directly at Lena, as if she, too, has been keeping tabs as she's moved about the room. All Lena can do is smile, the soft one she reserves just for her, her eyes crinkling, her giddiness finally calming. In response, Kara blinks lazily back at her, the corners of her lips pulling into a wide smile.

 _God, she's beautiful._ Standing between exhibits against the darkened walls, where the recessed light glows along the base like an approaching horizon, its light fading into the deep blues and midnight blacks as it climbs the wall, dotted with incandescent paint to simulate the night sky, smiling like that Kara looks like a stray sun, bright and utterly unbound by the laws of physics.

But a cloud eclipses Kara's face, her brow furrowing, the light dimmed, and Lena has just enough time to wonder at it when there's a hand at her elbow, unsolicited, insistent.

"Lena Luthor," an unctuous voice says, drawing out the R at the end of her name.

 _Dammit._

"Councilman Drummond," she responds when he comes into view, all gleaming teeth and tanned skin, the epitome of the slick politician. She smiles winningly - she's a pro at this, after all - but it's plastic, the fit not quite right, its sharp edges cutting into her skin. She tastes blood, hot and metallic.

Not that he notices.

The councilman wasn't on her list of invitees, but now that he's here, posing in front of her waiting for a photo op, there's not much to be done about it.

"What a lovely event you've put together. And a great cause - one of the best - developing the young minds of our fair city." His voice is silken, polished, but it grates on her nerves all the same.

She can't even be sure what drivel comes out of her own mouth in reply, but it's a canned response, the type of non-committal pleasantries she's exchanged a hundred times already tonight, designed to be gracious, polite, and most importantly: brief.

He doesn't get the memo. Interrupting her, Drummond smugly rattles off a list of talking points, a smirk on his face, his hands moving in practiced gestures.

 _What an ass_.

The councilman prattles on for a moment, and she allows it. It's not like she's actually listening anyway, although for all outward appearances she's a rapt audience, the plastic smile is firmly in place. Instead, she's watching his hair, which hasn't budged so much as a fraction of an inch the entire time they've been speaking.

 _How much product is in there? Is he just a walking fire hazard right now?_

She feels Kara's arrival before she actually sees her, a sudden warmth blooming at her right side. With great pleasure, she interrupts his monologue to introduce the new addition to their conversation, her right hand landing delicately on the exposed skin along Kara's back.

"Allow me to introduce Kara Danvers with CatCo Magazine," she says, the smile on her face transforming, turning far more genuine. There's a challenge in her voice, her teeth gleaming and sharp. Almost predatory.

The councilman's smile is polite, but his gaze is lascivious, lingering, and Lena's jaw tightens unconsciously, her fingers tensing against the warm skin at her fingertips. Her voice, however, remains even. "She's the reporter responsible for breaking the news on the slave trade, and-"

Unsurprisingly, Drummond's eyes light up at the mention, and unable to control himself, he interrupts Lena again, launching into full-scale politician mode. In a blur his hand shoots out to shake Kara's, and his voice rises, as if playing to a campaign crowd, uttering sound bites for anyone nearby.

"You did this city such a service, exposing the danger of allowing aliens here," he begins, still shaking her hand.

Throughout it all Kara's been quiet. Too quiet. But when Lena studies her face, she sees the clenched jaw, the narrowed eyes, the overly polite smile. There's no fidgeting, no adjustment to her glasses. Just pure unadulterated righteous indignation.

 _Oh he's done for…_

In a voice dripping with false cheer, Kara responds sweetly, "You must not have read the part about the humans running the operation as well." Kara returns the handshake, leaning into the contact as she continues.

The councilman's brows furrow, his eyes dropping to their joined hands, his eyebrows rising inch by inch in growing alarm.

"Or the part where an alien working in coordination with humans freed the victims," Kara continues, her tone saccharine, her face alight with an ersatz smile.

Drummond grimaces, something akin to a whimper escaping his lips as he glances nervously down again.

His voice is strained, hushed when he manages to speak, the politician brought to heel, "That's, uh, quite the grip you have there."

Kara lets their hands fall, a wide grin on her face, and Lena wants nothing more than to kiss her right then, to feel the grin shift beneath her lips.

Instead, she settles for excusing them and taking their leave, the type of polite departure sanctioned by all of the social handbooks. Or it would have been if she hadn't added a suggestion just as she and Kara had begun to step away. Eyes flitting to his hair, she offers, "There are some wonderful experiments set up in the East Hall you should check out. Maybe something will, um, spark your interest." The confused councilman stares at their retreating backs, rubbing absently at his sore hand.

When they cross the threshold into the Great Hall, far enough out of range now, Lena leans into Kara conspiratorially, "That," she starts, giggling uncontrollably, "was the highlight of my evening!"

Kara, who had been a little abashed at the turn of events, lightens, a chuckle emerging as she inclines her head to Lena. "What a...jerk!"

"Come on," Lena says, "let's head this way...I'd like to get as far away from that ass as possible."

And so they do.

The evening continues in much the same vein as it began, the pair moving through the hall in an elaborate dance, Lena taking the lead. A pirouette here, a promenade there, their steps in sync, orbiting one another on a graceful circuit through the room.

For awhile they content themselves watching the kids run around, their school uniforms in various levels of disarray as the evening wears on, hopping from one experiment station to another, oohing and ahhing at the demonstrations provided by the city's finest scientists.

The pint-sized attendees aren't without their dangers, however. A small pack hurries by on their way to check out the telescopes, one of the larger kids clipping Lena's thigh in passing, and the unexpected pressure pivots Lena off-balance, her heels twisting beneath her. Before she can make a fool of herself, a strong arm cradles her back, and Kara is leaning over her, concern etched into her face.

"Are you alright?" she asks, pulling Lena back upright.

A dazed nod is all Lena can manage in response. Kara's arm remains firm across her back, and Lena is definitely alright with that. They don't separate the rest of the evening.

Well, except for the one time. While Lena is deep in conversation with the Dean of National City University's science department, she turns to find that Kara is looking the other direction, her glasses pulled low on the bridge of her nose, her focus elsewhere. She must feel Lena's questioning eyes on her - turning, she excuses herself to the restroom and sets off across the hall with hurried steps.

It's a few minutes before she returns to Lena's side, her skin flushed, her hair a little disheveled.

"Is that a leaf in your hair?" Lena asks, squinting in an effort to find the answer herself.

"What?" Kara asks, her voice high, incredulous. "Don't be ridiculous!" But she reaches a hand to her hair all the same, and when Lena looks again, she sees nothing.

When the hour grows late, the crowds begin to thin, and they find themselves wandering toward the domed room at the far end of the building where the observatory's large refracting telescope resides.

Kara leads the way, and Lena contents herself staring at her muscled back, observing how the light plays across the expanse as they move, chasing shadows like a sunrise.

Blood rushes quick and hot through her veins.

Up ahead Kara turns her head, her eyes narrowing, as if evaluating. "You OK?" she asks.

Swallowing thickly, Lena smiles and nods, her response a little too quick. "Never better," she answers brightly. With a wary smile, Kara continues walking, and Lena exhales slowly, her eyes drifting again when they are underway, unable to resist the pull of gravity.

The observatory housing the large refracting telescope is deserted when they arrive, and their heels ring loudly on the tiled floor, their footsteps charting a path across an intricate mosaic of the night sky. They pause when they reach Orion, where the metal stairs have been positioned at the base of the telescope.

"After you," Lena says, and Kara climbs ahead of her, angling higher along the steps until she's able to press her eye to the lens.

"You should be looking at Jupiter, unless someone's changed it in the last few hours." Before everyone had arrived earlier in the evening, Lena'd stolen a few minutes in here alone. It had calmed her nerves, at least for awhile, admiring the striated planet, its swirls of browns and oranges reminding her of the marbles she used to collect as a child.

Looking up, she adds, "You should be able to see one of the moons...Europa, I think, maybe along the left side."

Wonder shapes Kara's face, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, her eyes, but as she pulls back, a flicker of something far less delighted crosses her face, a shadow easing her smile, a ghost behind her eyes.

"It's beautiful," Kara says softly.

"It is," Lena agrees, chewing unconsciously on her bottom lip, her eyes never wavering from Kara's face.

.

When Kara climbs down, they exit the room through a nearby door and find themselves on the far end of the balcony that runs along the building's north side, a dozen small telescopes placed sporadically along its lengths. Kara stands still a moment, surveying the view, and Lena leaves her to it, ambling slowly to the rail nearby.

The balcony is blessedly empty, and as the wind picks up, a chill sliding across her cheek, through the waves of hair framing her face, she can understand why her guests have all retreated inside. After a moment, Kara joins her at the rail, leaning forward on her forearms, her hands clasped in front.

"Thank you for being my date tonight, Kara." Her tone is soft, far softer than she had intended, but this wind carries her words away before she can pull them back, before she can try again.

"Pleasure was all mine," Kara responds, her features incandescent in the moonlight.

"I hope it was worth your while," Lena continues, forcing her tone to be lighter as she surveys the hills to the north, unmarred by the city's lights. "Did you make some good contacts?"

She can feel Kara nod at her side. "The mayor was super nice, _and_ he was willing to go on record and give me some quotes to use. Oh, and some of the kids wanted to be included," she adds, "although I'll need to track down their parents for permission, I suppose."

Silence grows between them, but it's comfortable, settling around their shoulders like a warm blanket.

Turning, standing taller, her hip braced lightly against the rail where a chill begins to settle, seeping through the fabric of her suit, Lena speaks, her voice low. "This is all down to you, you know, and there's nothing I can say or do to thank you enough for suggesting it." Kara demures, _of course she does_ , but Lena pushes on, placing a hand on Kara's arm in emphasis, stilling her movements. "I mean it. You are the most genuinely kind-hearted person I've ever met. All of this," she stops, struggling to find the right words. "I just..."

For a long moment, Kara says nothing - she looks down, away, suddenly self-conscious, and even in the low light of the balcony, Lena can see the blush creeping along her neck, tinting the tops of her ears.

When she gathers herself, Kara finally turns, straightening as she moves to face Lena fully. Her voice is barely a whisper, but the wind carries the words between them all the same. "You're going to change lives with this." A breath, deep, significant. "That's all you, Lena."

Maybe it's the champagne, leaving her bubbly, light. Maybe it's the way the moonlight plays across her features, all soft curves and radiant eyes. Or maybe it's the chill on the wind that has her leaning closer, in search of warmth.

Without thinking, without planning, Lena takes a hesitant step forward, her breath held captive in her lungs, and as she moves, Kara's eyes drop to her lips. Closing her eyes, Lena slowly leans in, her head angled.

Kara's breath tickles at her lips.

A noise sounds behind them, jarring in the expectant stillness, and they both pull back jerkily as a door opens nearby. Kara turns quickly to look out over the railing once more - anywhere but at her, while Lena, a ragged breath filling her lungs, watches Kara's retreat in mild horror as footsteps approach them.

Heat creeps into her cheeks, into her chest, sliding sickeningly into her stomach. She swallows her embarrassment as best she can as a staff member appears at her elbow.

"Ma'am, there's a guest inside waiting to write a check." A quick nod, a dismissal.

Taking a deep breath, Lena straightens, steel knitting itself along her spine.

When Kara finally looks at her, her eyes are jumpy, and it seems a herculean effort to hold Lena's gaze. "I should...I should go. It's late, and I know you have a lot to attend to." Kara's hands twist in knots along the rail, her knuckles white, and it's more than Lena can bear.

 _No no no no I've fucked it all up._

The steel in her spine spreads. Armor settles along her shoulders, clattering into place with a ring of finality, the weight familiar, secure. Nodding, the mask slips down her face, settling along the bridge of her nose, a perfect fit. With false bravado, she says, a practiced smile on her face, "Thank you again, Kara. Please be careful going home." Her voice is even, strong.

But it's wrong. It's all wrong.

Kara stares a moment before nodding, her own smile forced, melancholy along the edges.

Breaking her orbit, Lena pulls away, her heels ringing soundly along the balcony, the wind carrying her progress into the night sky. Her cheeks are red, her jacket is suddenly too hot, stifling.

She's Icarus, flown too close to the sun, and now she falls, shame burning tracks into the skin at her back as she passes through the door and back to work.

* * *

It's late when Lena gets home, although the past hour had passed in a blur, her motions on autopilot, her brain shut off for her own good.

She discards her suit in the first minute, slipping into her pajamas as quickly as possible before stepping into the bathroom to remove her make-up, to remove all traces of the night. When she's finished, she crosses the living room in search of water, determined to atone for the champagne, her movements slow, tired.

Shuffling back to her bedroom, the bottle cool and wet at her lips, a knock sounds at the door. It's hesitant, and Lena straightens, suddenly very much awake. Blood thrums in her ears as her heart begins to race. The list of possible suspects at her door is...unsettling, and Lena silently reaches for her purse where she'd set it on the buffet near the door, grasping for the taser she keeps tucked inside.

Another knock. Her grip tightens.

"Lena, it's me." As if she didn't recognize the voice, it adds, "It's Kara."

Although she lets the taser slide from her hand, clattering noisily back into her purse, her heart doesn't still. If anything, it beats even harder, climbing higher in her chest, a wild, raging thing moving heavily in her throat as she pads across the room and unlatches the door.

And there she is, standing in her doorway in sweats and a mismatched t-shirt that clashes terribly with the dress coat on top, as if she threw on whatever was closest to her as she ran out the door. The fashion is offensive, but the sight is incredibly endearing, and a tendril, warm and comfortable worms its way under Lena's skin.

"Hi," Kara offers.

"Hi…" Lena bites at her lip, unsure what to expect, and Kara's eyes track the movement. "What are you-"

"Was tonight a _date_ date?" They speak at the same time, but Kara's question echoes in the hall, and Lena freezes in place, swallowing thickly.

For a moment she considers lying, considers bottling her emotions like she's done so many times before, afraid that honesty, no matter what moral high ground it might give her, will inevitably cost her a friendship. _As if that's all this is._

In the end, however, there's never really any other option but the truth, not with Kara standing in front of her, her face open, guileless, but her body held close, tension evident in her form.

Sighing, Lena confesses. "I'd hoped so. I feel like we've been dating for weeks, honestly." She pauses, carefully watching Kara, who is busy worrying at her lips. Lena reads the tic as anxiousness.

Turns out she was right. But she had the reason all wrong.

"Look, if you don't want-" her words are cut off as Kara closes the distance between them, their lips meeting in a sudden kiss. It's chaste, simple, and wet, and it lasts just long enough for Lena to realize it's happening, but then Kara is leaning back, a small grin blooming on her face.

"Oh," Lena mumbles, her jaw falling open, her eyebrows climbing to her hairline, the epitome of surprise. She starts to say something else, but even as she begins she finds that she has no words, and instead she stands there, opening and closing her mouth, looking at Kara with wonder.

Kara, who is standing there, a blush coloring her cheeks, watching Lena imitate a fish, breaks the silence. "Do you want to have dinner with me?"

 _YES_ , Lena wants to say. Wants to shout. But there's a disconnect between her brain and her body.

Because Kara kissed her.

On the mouth.

 _She kissed me_.

And Lena's still standing there, silent, looking at this woman who is staring back at her expectantly.

"Not tonight, I mean, obviously," Kara starts, filling the silence with her patented nervous rambling. When her hands begin flailing, Lena feels the smirk creep up the corners of her mouth, and suddenly she can move again.

And she does.

Stepping forward, she places a hand on Kara's arm to still it and returns the kiss two-fold, reveling in the way Kara's sighs turn into a hum against her lips. Lena smiles into it before stepping away, watching as Kara, eyes still closed, leans forward into the space she's just vacated, chasing her lips.

They both stand in the doorway of her penthouse apartment, grinning like schoolgirls. Lena lets her hand slide down Kara's arm, watches their fingers tangle together.

"I'd love to," Lena says quietly, her lips electric. Kara just nods as she stares, her eyes vacillating between Lena's own and her lips, a dreamy smile gracing her features.

"OK." It's all Kara can muster as she exhales slowly.

"OK," Lena responds around a smile.

"Goodnight, Lena," Kara says simply, backing away down the hall, their fingers slowly untangling with the distance, seemingly unable to stop staring. Lena's no better. She rests her head against the doorway as she watches them come apart.

Before she disappears from view, Lena whispers into the hallway, "Goodnight, Kara."

It's a long while before her heart slows enough to consider sleep, and in the dark of her bedroom, she traces the smile she still wears.

Her wings may be singed, she may have fallen, but the sun dipped in the sky to catch her, and her lips burn still where they joined.


	9. Chapter 9

Current Day

"Inconceivable!"

The word rings in Kara's cozy apartment, and it takes Lena a moment to realize she's hearing the line from two different directions, like an echo. Of course, there's Vizzini's grating voice coming from the TV in front of her, his outbursts increasingly frustrated as he watches the man in black repeatedly overcome the roadblocks thrown in his way.

But there's a second source above her: Kara's muted imitation. Her voice is far gentler, the word almost whispered, like it escaped without permission. Like she just can't quite keep herself from quoting along with the film.

A smile pulls at the corners of Lena's mouth, and she presses herself further into the pillow beneath her cheek, curling closer into Kara's lap. Her fingers resume tracing slow circles on Kara's knee, the skin delightfully warm to the touch, her movements languid, idle. She turns her attention back to the TV.

"The Princess Bride" continues, the screen flickering in the darkened apartment, the greens and browns and blues of the idyllic landscape spilling into the room, wrapping around the soft cocoon they've woven for themselves on the couch, the stillness broken occasionally by another echoed line from her girlfriend. When warm fingers trace their way along her scalp, playing with the strands of hair framing her face, Lena's eyes flutter closed in unabashed contentment. She revels in it, this foreign feeling. Memorizes the weight of it. The shape of it.

On screen, Vizzini loses the battle of the wits, and Buttercup finally comes face to face with her rescuer, arguing defiantly when he needles her. But she doesn't recognize him, doesn't see beneath the facade, beneath the simple costume.

All she sees is the disguise.

All she sees is the trick.

There was a point in time where Lena thought the premise of this scene was utterly ridiculous. How could she not know it was him all along? How can you love someone and not recognize them standing right in front of you?

 _Apparently, it's not always that simple._

Rolling her shoulders, Lena shifts against Kara's leg, tilting her head up to look at Kara, who's watching the TV raptly, a dopey grin sliding across her face the moment that Buttercup, at last, realizes her mistake and flings herself down the hill after Westley.

God, it had taken her an embarrassingly long time to make that leap herself.

"You're staring. I can feel it." Although Kara's eyes never leave the screen, her smile sharpens, turns playful, and her fingers untangle themselves from Lena's hair, moving instead to trace the shell of her ear, to raise goosebumps along her jawline and draw a smile from her lips. When the fingers stray too close, Lena purses her lips, steals a kiss, her cheeks pulling into a Cheshire grin.

"Can't help it," Lena sighs. "You're distracting."

"Hmm" is all the response she gets, but Kara vibrates with it, and it seeps under Lena's skin, settles around her like a warm blanket. Turning away, back to face the screen once more is a herculean effort, but eventually, Lena manages it. Kara's hand returns to tangle softly in her hair.

The movie continues, and the minutes pass. The heroes find themselves traversing the dreaded Fire Swamp with its three-fold dangers. "Rodents of unusual size? I don't think they exist," Westley stupidly proclaims.

Lena waits for the surround sound quote, but Kara is silent above her. There is no echo.

Reaching blindly, Lena grabs hold of the hand resting heavily against her hair, pulling it forward and placing a kiss against the cool palm while her eyes slip closed.

Her lips taste smoke, and she breathes in fire.

She blinks, uncomprehending, staring with disbelief at the singed blue sleeve inches from her face, the cloth marbled with shades of deep red.

Slowly, her movements dulled, sluggish, her muscles uncooperative, Lena shifts, her head swiveling upwards, seeking out Kara's face above her.

"Lena?" Kara says, her voice rising in panic, her blue eyes widening as she reaches up to run a bloodied, blackened hand along her own cheek.

But her cheeks are broken, studded with green, and her veins glow beneath her skin, incandescent in the darkened apartment.

A knock, hard, insistent, sounds at the door across the room, and Kara's eyes shift towards the noise, but her eyes are unfocused, unseeing. Her hand trembles in the flickering light.

Lena leverages herself up, swinging her legs off the couch and turning away from the TV. Her office door comes into view.

"Come in," she says off-handedly, leaning forward in her chair to finish up her response to R&D about their latest request. The afternoon sun traces warm fingers along her exposed neck, casts oblong rectangles and lines along the edges of her desk.

"Hello dear," her mother purrs, gliding gracefully through the doors in her designer heels, looking flawless, everything in its place. Passing the coffee table, her purse swings wide, barely missing the flower vase sitting near the table's edge. The lilies shiver in her wake, their tall stalks bending and bowing as she processes by.

"You…," Lena starts, her spine straightening, her fingers turning white where she grips the arm of her chair. "You're not supposed to be here." Her voice is calm and even, betraying nothing of the panic bubbling in her throat.

As she approaches, Lillian inclines her head indulgently, blinking languidly in the bright office, and when she stops a few feet away, her face unchanged, the patronizing tone is unmistakable. After all, Lena's heard it most of her life.

"Darling, I just wanted to make sure you didn't miss your surprise, that's all." Leaning down, her mother takes her by the elbow, gently guides her up.

It's like she's eight years old again, under her mother's commanding thumb, escorted away like a misbehaving child. It's a lesson she learned young. Learned hard.

And Lena yields. Like she always did.

Together they turn, firm hands pointing her to the bank of windows along the wall and the view beyond, where the sky has darkened to a haunting purple, no man's land between day and night. One step. Another. Lena pulls forward on her own, drifting to the balcony railing, her mother's fingers sliding slowly away.

The city is beautiful tonight, the skyline twinkling to life beneath her, its yellows and whites and greens and reds like an abstract painting - National City by Jackson Pollock. Overhead, a sprinkling of stars have punctured the dawning night sky, but their lights are strangely flat. Off.

Closing her eyes, Lena wraps her fingers around the metal railing and listens to the city.

But it doesn't sing to her, not tonight. The streets are uncannily quiet. There are no engine growls, no angry horns, no hum of electricity coursing through the grid, the symphony of downtown completely silenced.

A line forms in her forehead. And then another. Everything is...wrong, like her world is just a few degrees off kilter. Close, but not quite.

Tightening her grasp on the railing, Lena opens her eyes and looks across the skyline. Watching. Waiting.

Supergirl falls to Earth in the distance.

The _thud_ is visceral. She feels it in the pit of her stomach, in the way every nerve ending in her body rages.

But still it's silent, and Lena stares in muted, open-mouthed horror. Her screams die on her lips, acrid and sharp and bloody.

And then the world around her shatters with a thundering boom as the sound barrier collapses, sending a tidal wave of sound careening across the city. All of it - the shrill scream of sirens, the incessant growl of traffic, the cracking of bones, the crash of atoms. It's the sound of death.

She stands unblinking in the deluge, drowning in the waves, salt staining her lips.

 _Clank. Clank_.

The sound at her back is quiet but persistent, the kind of thing that weaves itself into the background, ever-present but infinitesimal. It's hard to say how long it is before Lena notices, before she turns to seek its source.

Lillian stands tall behind her, the drab gray jumpsuit hanging poorly on her frame, her neck ringed in pearls, her hair immaculate.

 _Clank. Clank._

As her mother shifts, the handcuffs dangling from her wrists like bracelets of steel jangle, the short chain between them protesting noisily at the attempt at movement.

"Well," she starts, her voice calm, commanding, "now that's settled, we can get back to-"

Lillian's brows furrow in confusion. "Darling, wh-" Her mother's face cracks, a flaw in her perfect appearance, and her eyes widen in shock.

Lena doesn't hear the rest. She stumbles backward, away, _have to get away -_ but there's no rail at her back, no safety to be found. As her feet find nothing but night sky beneath them, her mother's face twists into familiar disappointment.

And then she's falling.

The wind whips her hair around her face, and the force pushes her arms and legs upward as she falls. She doesn't scream. Or at least if she does, she can't hear it.

Instead, she watches the strange, untwinkling stars above her, flat against the bruised sky, and she wonders at them, curling the fingers of her outstretched hands as if she could pluck them out, gather them up.

The impact brings darkness, total and absolute, and for a moment there's nothing. No sound, no feeling. Just darkness.

But it doesn't last. The pain creeps in, sharp and hot in her neck. A beeping begins, electronic, steady, and it reminds her of -

Lena wakes with a start, her eyes darting around the room in panic, but as she takes in her surroundings, the room regains its familiarity, and little by little her heartbeat begins to calm in her chest, the wild careening beginning to slow. She takes a deep breath, and her lungs burn with the effort.

Apparently, she'd dozed off in a chair next to Kara's bed, her legs tucked into her chest, her head bent at an awkward angle against the arm. Lifting her head, a sleep line mars her cheek. Movement hurts, she finds very quickly. As the vestiges of her dreams begin to fade away, she rubs at her neck where it aches, pins and needles and fire along the topmost portion of her spine. J'onn had offered her the use of the DEO barracks, given her the grand tour himself, but they're too far away.

Everywhere is too far away.

Gingerly unfolding her limbs, Lena scoots closer to the bed until her chair is within the ring of lamps and she feels the warmth on her neck, in her hair, until it suffuses her lungs. Reaching out with tentative movements, she lays a hand across Kara's wrist, and she holds her breath until she feels it against her fingertips, the thready heartbeat beneath the surface. It calms her, brings her own racing heart into line.

Lena sits, her head leaned back, her arm outstretched. She no longer tastes blood on her tongue or smoke on her lips, no longer feels screams clawing at her throat. There are just the heartbeat and the sun.

And try as she might to stay awake, to focus, soon her eyelids droop, the sun is lost, and as she leans back in her chair, her face retreating into the shadows beyond Kara's lamps, she falls into nightmares again.

* * *

Time is fluid. It comes and it goes, it starts and stops and rewinds, unconstrained by natural laws. Lena sleeps in minutes. She sleeps in hours. And upon waking, Kara is the same, always the same.

During the course of the night, the cramped medical suite saw a steady stream of visitors. J'onn, whose visits were brief, silent affairs. Winn, who talked a lot, words tumbling out of his mouth in a flood; Winn who said nothing at all.

And, of course, there was Alex.

They had sat together for a little while early last night, she and Alex and Maggie. But then Maggie's phone had chirped to life, the NCPD demanding her return in clipped tones, and the two had excused themselves. When Alex returned a few minutes later, her eyes were freshly red, her hands trembling as she ran her fingers through her hair.

They sat quietly, their silence comfortable. She was there when Lena dozed off, a steady presence nearby, her eyes always trained on Kara.

But when Lena wakes from her nightmare in the middle of the night, dull, flat stars still floating behind her eyes, the chair next to hers is empty. Alex is gone.

Alone, save for Kara, Lena blinks repeatedly, willing the sleep away while stretching the cramped fingers of her hand where it had been curled beneath her arm while she slept. Squinting against the bright light overhead, she checks the time on the slender watch sitting slack against her wrist: 3:47 a.m. _Christ._

Slowly - so slowly - she unfolds from the chair next to Kara's bed, her legs shaky from disuse, her brain muddled. A couple hours of broken sleep, and she's gained nothing but nightmares from its inky depths, shadows that are slow to recede even in the overwhelming glare of the lamps circling the bed.

Kara lies still beneath them, maddeningly unchanged. Lena blinks, a voice whispering that maybe this is another nightmare, maybe this isn't real. But the lamps are warm on the exposed skin at her neck, and Kara's skin is still broken and raw beneath her fingertips.

She steps away.

The path to the barracks' bathroom is circuitous, but not intentionally. Turn after turn leads to one identical corridor after another, leading Lena back and forth in the military-industrial maze, and with the specters of her nightmares lurking in the shadows at her back, whispering insidious nothings in the shell of her ear, her steps grow hurried, confused. Her heels rain staccato bullets on the steel floor, and they ricochet off the walls all around her.

The fluorescent lights in the restroom are disorientingly bright when she finally manages to find her way, but the splash of cold water on her face is bracing. Rivulets cut across her ashen cheeks and cascade to the basin below, circling and disappearing into nothingness in the drain. Leaning heavily on her hands, she eyes her reflection warily, noting the circles beginning to form beneath her eyes, threatening to swallow them whole.

" _Tsk tsk_ ," clucks a voice in her head. It's her mother's tone, patronizing and sharp, deriding the naked exhaustion and emotion etched into Lena's face for all to see, her mask long since crumbled to dust.

Any sign of weakness, any outward crack or imperfection is strictly forbidden, a lesson learned in agonizing clarity in her youth.

Her fingers curl painfully into the stainless steel sides of the sink, her knuckles paling.

She remembers well her mother's stoic face and flawless make-up under the lights of the cameras after Lex was arrested, how Lillian faced the paparazzi and police interrogations alike as immovable as granite, not a hair out of place. But when the door closed at the family estate, when the cameras darkened and the public eye turned away, Lena remembers the breaking glass, the snarled teeth hidden beneath the polished facade. She remembers, too, the deluge of tears, the barely concealed sobs, as if her mother could somehow cry enough to fill the void left by Lex.

Clenching her jaw, she plunges her hands beneath the icy water and cups them to her face, again and again, until her skin is raw and her hands are numb.

Until the voice is silent.

When her limbs feel a little less heavy, when her body resigns itself to being awake, Lena steps away from the haunted girl in the mirror and out into the hall to begin the meandering walk back toward Kara's room, her route the one J'onn had shown her the night before, the turns more familiar now that she has her bearings. Nearing the control room, she hears them before she sees them, raised voices echoing along the empty corridors. And when she enters, the voices falter and quiet, leaving her feeling like an unintended intruder. Although Alex slides a guilty look her way, J'onn merely nods in greeting before continuing to speak, albeit at a more reserved volume.

"It's covered. Ramirez, Cole, and Strauss have been covering the courthouse, and Vasquez has a team reviewing tape and running analysis. I pulled Agent Schott to work on reconstructing the explosive device."

The roles are laid out with military precision, each to their station, and Lena feels her uselessness in electric neon, stinging along her arms, flashing across her face for all to see. It itches and rankles in a way she's unaccustomed.

"Catch a few hours, Agent Danvers," J'onn continues, and Alex visibly bristles at the order, her chest rising quickly as she draws breath to ready a response. He shuts her down before she can get a word out, his eyebrows rising in emphasis. "I need you fully here," he continues. When Alex opens her mouth to protest again, his voice softens.

"Alex."

It's a question, a request, an order wrapped in the tone of a concerned father. Alex doesn't deflate, doesn't loosen the tension in her jaw, but she turns quietly, all the same, moving in clipped strides toward the hall that leads to Kara's room.

J'onn exhales quietly. "I wish…" he starts, but he doesn't complete the sentence. There's no need. She knows what he'd wish. She knows the sadness lurking in his eyes when they slide to meet her own. Knows, too, the way his expression closes off, corrects. Offering him an understanding nod, Lena excuses herself and follows the path Agent Danvers took from the room moments before.

She finds Alex standing over Kara's bed, all bloody knuckles and clenched teeth. Clouds darken her brow, and she vibrates with the barely restrained intensity of a thunderhead, electricity crackling in the air around her.

Lena hesitates in the doorway a moment, waits until she sees Alex take a deep, bracing breath before she moves to stand by her side.

"What's happened?" Lena asks. The question may seem...indelicate, perhaps. Blunt, most definitely. But she needs news. Needs _something_.

"Visited Lillian Luthor in jail," Alex mutters, her eyes never leaving Kara's prone form in the hospital bed beneath them. It's a critical gaze, like she's cataloging, eyes scanning inch by inch in search of a change in her condition. Any change.

When Alex's shoulders sag, Lena knows that she's come to the same inevitable conclusion: nothing's changed. It's the same routine she's seen from everyone who has walked through the door since last night, like the haunting chorus of a sad song, the same melancholy notes played on a loop. Lena's eyes drop to Alex's fists again, where the skin is red and broken.

Only then does it seem to hit Alex, what she's said, who she's talking to, and her head swivels, eyes widening.

"It's not-", she starts, turning her hands over, looking at them with fresh eyes. "I didn't-," her words cut off, and she sighs heavily. Starting again, she says, "Your mom...is something else." By her side her hands flex and then reform into fists, leaving the agent grimacing at the ache.

A laugh bubbles in Lena's throat, but it's a dark thing, mirthless and resigned. "Yeah…"

"She was cagey. And smug," Alex ventures, pausing a moment gauge Lena's reaction. "All too happy to rattle her chains in my face, remind me she's been under lock and key for weeks now."

Frowning, Alex eyes her hands again before turning to Lena, her cheeks a light red, "I, uh, I hit the wall outside the holding cell a few times."

"Wall still standing?" Lena mutters, her eyebrows drawing together in concern. Not for her mother - there's no protectiveness there, no ache of sympathy. Instead, there's just a disconnect, a hollowness, noticeable only where the emptiness bleeds into the frayed periphery.

No, there's no concern for her mother. But for Alex Danvers? Lena shifts and steps toward the small sink set against the wall, her limbs grateful for the movement. When she returns with a cool, damp rag, Alex tries to wave her off like there's a penance in letting the injury sting, like it reinforces the connection to hurt alongside her sister.

"Sit." It's her CEO voice, the one she uses to bring the boardroom to heel. Confused, Alex complies, shuffling to sit in the chair by the bed that Lena had slept in last night. There's a twinge in her neck just looking at it now. "Did you get _anything_ useful?" she asks, crouching next to the chair, setting to work by dabbing gently at the blood around Alex's knuckles and clearing the grit and debris from the broken skin.

"I know she's lying," Alex responds, shaking her head. "God, she wasn't even really trying to convince m-" Her words cut off abruptly when Lena touches a particularly raw spot on her hand, and her fingers splay automatically.

"Sorry…" Lena whispers, her face twisting in apology before continuing her work.

Alex watches the progress a moment, the dried blood all but gone, but the skin beneath blooms red and purple and black, a bouquet of bruises to carry in remembrance. When she continues her thought, her tone is quiet, but there's an edge to it, the promise of the storm charging the air. "I got nothing. All that...and I got nothing." Nostrils flared, she stretches the fingers of her hand again while Lena stands, moving to the sink to rinse out the rag.

"Thanks," Alex offers, her eyes flitting to Lena's before falling, finding her sister.

Returning, Lena stands next to the bed, and together they stare at the girl beneath them, battered and broken, her condition unchanged. Wires snake from her scalp, cocoon her arms, stretch out from her fingertips and connect her to a panel of machines beside the bed. The effect is unsettling. It's a weird dichotomy, for while Lena Luthor, CEO of L-Corp, is familiar with the technology, knows the purpose of each machine, their effect on the whole is disquieting, and it's more like standing in a post-modern Frankenstein's laboratory than in a hospital room.

They stare in silence, words unnecessary, but the room is full of noise all the same. The machines beep and blurt and screech in rhythm, and beneath it all is a constant electric hum, the sound visceral and all-encompassing. It sinks under Lena's skin, sets her nerves alight, makes her teeth hurt with the sharp pain of something too cold, too fast.

She hates it. Every second, every sound. She hates the way the smell of smoke lingers in the room long after Kara's body has been cleaned, long after her charred, tattered suit has been removed.

The itch in her arms and the tingle in her nerves transforms into movement. She's had her moment to break down - the jolt of adrenaline that propelled her across town last night and led her here, and the subsequent crash that left her whimpering in the chair next to Kara's bed. But now? She splays her fingers, curls them again, savoring the stretch. Now it's time to work.

"What can I do?" she asks, turning to face the woman at her side, the question suddenly sharp.

Alex is motionless, a specter, her eyes fixed on the bed, giving no outward sign that she's heard the words, heard the need in them, heard the hope hidden in their shapes. So Lena repeats herself.

"What can I do?" she says again, pausing a moment before deciding to elaborate. "I heard earlier in the control room…"

Alex blinks, and Lena falls silent, watching the woman shift, watching how her eyes blink once more, purposefully, before reluctantly dragging away from Kara. Watches, too, how they seem to shift, to focus with a definitive _click_ , as if only now being able to see the room beyond the hospital bed. And when Alex blinks a third time, she's Agent Danvers. With a slight movement, her shoulders pull back and her spine straightens, as if moved by muscle memory alone, a soldier ready to report, adjusting to the phantom body armor settled heavily over her frame. God, she knows the feeling, and seeing it so clearly in Alex chases the remaining shadows from Lena's own mind, like the sun burning away the last vestiges of a morning fog.

Purpose, Lena decides, is the root cause. Having a purpose, working towards a mission, is wholly transformative - it's a universal human truth. But the thought falters as her eyes briefly flit to the bed at her side, her fingers reaching out to graze the corners of the bedsheet, and it slides cool against her fingertips. It's a universal truth, full stop, she corrects. Humanity is hardly a prerequisite.

When Alex begins to speak, her voice carries the undercurrent of authority, and Lena's thoughts focus once more. "Agents are covering all aspects of the bombing, looking for suspect ID," she begins, repeating the facts as if reading a dispatch, "delineating motive circling Supergirl, Cadmus, and the National City political scene, with particular focus on the recent upheaval therein, and analyzing a million pieces of evidence from two different sites." A pause, a breath, and then...nothing. The moment stretches, the seconds dragging by while the words hang heavily in the space between them. In a rush, Alex releases the breath she'd held burning in her lungs. And says no more. Her gaze falls back to Kara, returning to its familiar path of cataloging and analyzing injuries, looking for improvement. Looking for hope.

It's the words left unsaid that trouble them both.

A shadow crosses Alex's eyes and takes up residence between them, a solid thing, cold and undeniable, and her strong shoulders bow fractionally inward under the pressure. Could be doubt. Could be fear. Of course, Lena considers, it might merely be a reflection of what's written all over her own face.

With a shiver, Lena shifts and allows her gaze to move away from Alex to a bare stretch of wall behind the woman. The space and color are neutral, utterly unnoteworthy, but it reminds her of a fresh canvas, blank and so full of possibility, ready and waiting for a new story to be told across its breadth. The rhythmic beeping of the medical machinery seeps into her veins and stirs her blood, again and again, until its summons reaches every limb and her fingertips resonate with the frequency. Until it resounds in her head like a call to arms.

For all outward appearances, she zones out, the way her eyes slide out of focus, the way she absentmindedly chews on the inside of her mouth. Inwardly, however, the bell toll has awoken something elemental. With a whirr of motors and a steady hum of electricity, her mind jolts to life like a Leviathan lumbering out of the depths. Taking all of Alex's information, she shuffles through it, pulls a piece out, turns it first one way and then another, evaluating every facet before placing it back amongst the group and picking up the next. Words flit behind her eyes like images across a giant whiteboard, and lists begin to form in the margins, data distilled into stark bullet points and rudimentary timelines, their order constantly rearranging while she processes, making room for new puzzle pieces and discarding the irrelevant. Everything is cross-referenced and sourced, and mental images accompany her notes like file attachments in an email.

It's always been this way for her, her brain processing the world around her in bulleted lists and cataloged images, numbers and letters each in their place. Growing up, it didn't take long to realize it was unconventional, this process, but it's always gotten the job done for her. God knows it was useful in college and is damn near indispensable in keeping L-Corp at the forefront of its field.

When her eyes flash open, she finds Alex watching her, but her features are guarded, closed off. Lena wastes no time, not anymore. Her brain is screaming at her, the circuitry alight, and it hums in her nerves right down to her toes. It's the buzz of discovery. Of possibility.

Of hope.

"The Kryptonite. Where is it?"

Alex's eyebrows furrow, and suspicion obscures her gaze like smoke. There's a hesitation - one, two, three beats - before the agent carefully responds.

"Secure storage. It's been logged and will be analyzed with the evidence from the scene, explosives, etc."

"I need it." Alex's eyes widen in barely concealed alarm, and Lena cringes visibly at the tactless statement.

Not exactly her most eloquent request.

"It's secure, Lena. Only J'onn and I have access." Feeling the need to further explain, Alex continues. "Look, the DEO doesn't exactly have a great history with this stuff, and-"

"And I'm a Luthor." It's a statement rather than a question, and the room suddenly feels too hot, the overhead lamps too close for comfort. She can feel the blood rising in her cheeks.

When Alex inhales, ready with a rebuttal, Lena cuts her off. "Look, Agent Danvers, I know you have fine technicians here at the DEO, and Winn...Winn would be welcome in my lab any day of the week, but-" Her words halt, and her traitorous eyes find their way to Kara, to the angry welts and broken skin, the soot-blackened hair, the wires and tubes anchoring her to the bed. She looks small, a description Lena has never once associated with the woman, or her counterpart, and there's a sting in her eyes that feels like betrayal. Sucking in an unsteady breath, she smells the acrid note of smoke on the air. It burns in her nose, in her lungs. Swallowing, she wills the words to come without choking, reaches out in search of steel to strengthen her spine.

"But you don't have anyone like me."

Across the way, Alex narrows her eyes and chews her lip in concentration, the steady beep of one of Kara's machines ticking off the seconds of silence between them.

"I will get you something, but I need a sample. I need to work," Lena pleads.

Alex's eyes have dropped to Kara again.

When the final words come, they're barely above a whisper, more a prayer than a conscious statement, a wish sent into the universe to be decided by a higher power. "I need to help her, Alex." And that's it, really, the entirety of her request distilled down to five meager words. She feels the truth of it vibrate in every cell of her body, a fine-tuned instrument with only one note. So much for armor and steel, Lena thinks, swallowing harshly and blinking away the sting in her eyes. She's laid herself bare beneath the bright lights, stripped to bone and blood and heart.

Alex reaches out to her sister, her fingers hovering delicately over Kara's cheek, but they don't land. They can't. There's no spot, no inch unmarred by last night's attack. Instead, the outstretched fingers curl painfully in upon themselves, and the arm retracts tightly to Alex's chest. Lena's heart clenches in her chest, and her breath rattles in lungs.

Without turning, eyes locked on Kara's still face, unnaturally sallow despite the glow of the lamps, Alex swallows and speaks, her voice surprisingly strong. Sure. It claps like thunder in the small room.

"How much do you need?"


End file.
